1920-05-17

FURTHER SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES FOR 1920.

[Stage Direction]
A message from His Excellency the Governor General transmitting further Supplementary Estimates for the year ending March 31, 1920, was presented by Sir Henry Drayton (Minister of Finance), read by Mr. Speaker to the House, and referred to the Committee of Supply.

Rt. Hon. Sir ROBERT BORDEN (Prime Minister):: On behalf of Hon. Mr. Rowell, I beg to move:
That a message be sent to the Senate to acquaint Their Honours that this House has agreed to the amendment made by the Senate to Bill No. 29, an Act respecting Honey, with an amendment to their amendment as adopted by the House on the 12th instant.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. D. REID (Minister of Railways) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 135, to amend the Railway Act, 1919.
Some hon. MEMBERS:: Explain.


Mr. J. D. REID:: Mr. Speaker, section 6 of the Act to amend the Railway Act, passed at the last session, provided that any railway under provincial jurisdiction which was leased or operated by another road wholly or partly within the legislative authority of the Parliament of Canada should be regarded as a work for the general advantage of Canada and therefore subject to the jurisdiction of the Board of Railway Commissioners. This clause was inserted to cover the case of the Quebec Central Railway which, being part of the Canadian Pacific Railway system, was under provincial as well as Dominion jurisdiction. We found afterwards that that clause had been so worded as to have the effect of taking in street railway lines, electric suburban railways and tramways constructed under the authority of a provincial legislature. This Bill proposes to place these electric lines again under the jurisdiction* of the Provincial Government. If I read the main clause of the Bill its purpose will be explained:	.
Section 6 of the Railway Act, 1919, is amended by adding thereto the following subsection:
2.	The provisions of clause (e) of section 6 of the Railway Act, 1919, shall be deemed not to include or apply to any street .railway, elec-
[Mr. Tolmie-l

trie suburban railway or tramway constructed under the authority of a provincial legislature and which has not been declared to be a work for the general advantage of Canada otherwise than by the provisions of the said clause.
This is merely to place such lines again under provincial jurisdiction.


Mr. BUREAU:: Will the minister read
the section as it read before?


John Dowsley Reid: Well, I have not the section before me at the moment.
iMr. W. F. MACLEAN (South York): Is there any provision in this Bill for extending the jurisdiction of the Railway Commission in regard to telephone companies? A provision to that effect was left out of the previous legislation. It was introduced in this House, but defeated in the other.


John Dowsley Reid: No.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the first time.


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 128 (Letter J3 of the Senate), for the relief of Francis Charles Dean.-Mr. Mowat.
Bill No. 129 (Letter K3 of the Senate), for the relief of John James Garrison.-Mr. Mowat.
Bill No. 130 (Letter L3 of the Senate), for the relief of Dora Lumsden MacLaurin.- Mr. Fripp.
Bill No. 132 (Letter U2 of the Senate), respecting The Army and Navy Veterans in Canada.-Mr. Blake.
Bill No. 133 (Letter H3 of the Senate), for the relief of Edith Sarah Bell.-Mr. Douglas (Strathcona).
Bill No. 134 (Letter 13 of the Senate), for the relief of Albert Graham Elson.-Mr. Douglas (Strathcona).

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)

Mr. PREVOST:: 1.	In the re-classification of the Civil Service, have the so-called American experts and the Civil Service Commission taken into account the actual cost of living in fixing the salaries of the civil servants?
2.	If so, have their estimations been verified adequately and justly?
3.	If not, is the work done by the so-called experts and the Civil Service Commission to be modified and readjusted as regards the salaries?


Hon. Mr. SIFTON:: 1.	Yes.
2.	Yes. The recommendations of the Civil Service Commission have been approved by the Government, thoroughly investigated and endorsed by special committees of the House of Commons and Senate and finally authorized by the Civil Service Amendment Act of 1919, passed 10th November last.
3.	The Civil Service Act provides, section 42 (2), that " The Commission shall hereafter, as it may from time to time deem necessary, establish additional classes and grades ;and classify therein new positions created or established in the said classification, and may divide, combine, alter, or abolish existing classes and grades."
Subsection (1) of the same section provides that the classes of positions shall "include the several rates of compensation." The Civil Service Commission has power, therefore, to "modify and readjust" the salary schedules and submit the same for the approval of the Governor in Council.


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS.
[Stage Direction]
*Mr. GASGRlAIN:
How much does' it cost per mile to haul a car on the Canadian National railways?
John Dowsley Reid: I answered this the
other day.


Mr. SPEAKER:: I understood that the
minister explained why he could not answer the question, but I thought the question should stand with a view to the hon. member revising it.


Mr. CAHILL:: A private car or passenger car?


John Dowsley Reid: I cannot give any other answer than that which I gave to this question the other day.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Answered.


MR. PHILIPPE BOUCHER.
[Stage Direction]
Mr. BOURAiSSA:
1.	Has Philippe Boucher, of Charny, railway conductor on the Intercolonial railway, who was arrested for theft of merchandise from the Grand Trunk railway in Montreal last fall, and found guilty, been reinstated in his former position?
2.	If so, how long after his offence was he reinstated?
3.	At whose request was he reinstated?
Hon. J. D. REID:: 1.	He was not arrested for stealing from the Grand Trunk railway, but he was arrested by a Grand Trunk railway police-

man for having in his possession blankets belonging to Canadian Government railways. He has since been reinstated.
2.	Twenty-six days.
3.	At the request of the General (Superintendent after he had thoroughly investigated the matter and found that Boucher was not attempting to steal.


VESSELS UNDER RAILWAY COMMISSION.
Mr. ARMSTRONG (Lambton):: 1.	How many boats are under control of the Railway Commission as regards rates, tolls, tariff agreements and arrangements?
2.	What are the names of the vessels, the dead weight tonnage of each and the routes over which they run?


Hon. Mr. REID:: 1.	The Board of Railway 'Commissioners has not the definite information that would enable it to reply to this question. The tariffs filed, in conformity with Sections 336 and 358 of the Railway Act, do not show the names of the steamers nor their tonnage, nor does the Act call for this information.
2.	See answer to number 1.


CIVIL SERVICE .COMMISSION STAFF.
[Stage Direction]
Mr. FR'IPP:
1.	Are there any male persons of military age employed in the offices of the Civil Service Commission who were eligible for service overseas and who did not enlist for such service?
2.	If so, what are their names and date of appointment?
3.	Why are they retained?
4.	Have any appointments been made to the said department of young men who did not see service, between the ages of twenty and thirty-flve years, since the 1st of November, 1918?
5.	If so, how many?
Rt. Hon. Mr. SIFTON:: 1.	Yes.
2.	J. W. Bourbonnas, 15th July, 1918; W. IB. Cole, transferred to Civil Service Commission, April 1, 1920 ; 6. J. Daley, 30th September, 1908; C. V. Putman, November 15th, 1918; A Thivierge, transferred to Civil Service Commission, February, 1920.
3.	Being all married men with families these were not liable for military service although eligible, and the Civil Service Commission is not aware of any reason why they should not be retained in the public service.
4.	Yes.
5.	Four.


BANKRUPTCY ACT-TRUSTEES.
*Mr. CASGRAIN:: 1.	Has the Government determined its policy regarding the appointment of trustees under the new Bankruptcy Aot, 1919?
2.	If so. what is it?


Rt. Hon. Mr. SIFTON:: [DOT]
1.	No.
2.	Answered by No. 1.


MR. PUTMAN.
Mr. COPP:: 1.	Is there an official connected with the Civil Service Commission named Putman?
2.	If so, does he hold a responsible position of an advisory or directory character?
3.	What is said position?
4.	Beyond an academic examination, has he any qualifications in the nature of practical experience in handling or supervising large bodies of officials?
5.	If so, what special qualifications?
6.	Whajt is his age?
7.	What is his salary?


Rt. Hon. Mr. SIFTON:: 1.	Yes.
'	2. Appoinlted Assistant Chief, Organization Branch ih March, 1920.
3.	Answered by No. 2.
4.	Y-efe.
5.	Graduate civil engineer, eight years' banking experience, six years of engineering experience, during such period had direction of as many as three hundred men, one year and a half rwith the Civil Service Commission on classification work, one year as acting chief. Obtained highest standing on 'Civil Service open competitive examination held in October, 1919, for the position of (Chief, Organization Branch, with a percentage o'f 86.3 per cent.
6.	32 years.
7.	$255 a month.


PURCHASES BY GREECE AND ROUMANIA.
Mr. ARCHAMBAULT:: 1.	Were 'the goods bought from different corporations or commercial firms in Canada, with the credits granted; by the Canadian Government to Greece and Roumania, purchased after tenders were called?
2.	What person or persons purchased these goods for Greece and1 Roumania?
3.	Has any Government employee taken part in 'the purchase of 'these goods? If so, who is or who are these employees, and in what department are they employed?


Rt. Hon. Sir GEORGE FOSTER:: 1. The bulk of the purchases made by the Greek Government iwere eurpluls Stores belonging to the Militia Department. The pricels fixed by ithe War Purchasing Commission were submitted to the Greek Government and tfhe decision (to buy was made by their representative.
In the case of the leather, cloth, and other materials (bought by the Greeks, tenders were called and submitted to the representatives of the 'Greek Government who made the final decision to purchase.

With reference to the purchases made by Roumania, these were made direct by the Roumanian representatives from representatives of Canadian firms lin London. These orders (were passed to the Canadian Trade Commission who gave an opportunity to the whole trade concerned to participate in the order.
2.	The respective representatives of the Greek and Roumanian Governments.
3.	In all cases the decision to purchase was made 'by the representative of itlhe Government of Greece and Roumania and not by any Government employee.


ENTERPRISE FOUNDRY COMPANY.
Mr. BUREAU:: 1.	What amount of mtorney was paid toy the Enterprise Foundry Company of Sackville, N.B., for the 95 tons of cast iron which were Bhipped from the Roiss Rifle factory of Quebec, to the said Enterprise Foundry Company?
2.	Who Was the money paid to, and who fixed (the price to toe paid?


Hon. Mr. GUTHRIE:: 1.	$2,543.25.
2.	(.a) Receiver General; (b) Assistant Commissioner.


CAMPBELLTON-GROSS POINT INTERPROVINCIAL, FERRY.
Air. MARGIL (Bonaventure):: 1.	Has the contract for the Interprovincial Ferry over the Restigouche river, between Campbellton, N.B., and Gross Point, Quebec, been awarded?
2.	If so, to whom, and on what conditions?
3.	Who were the tenderers, and what were their respective tenders?


Hon. Mr. REID:: 1.	Awarded but contract not yet signed.
2.	(a) To John Quinn, the only tenderer who was qualified to carry out the conditions; (b) Supply a suitable boat propelled by steam. Ferry to run daily (Sundays excepted) from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. at half hour intervals except for six hours during the day when only one round trip will be required in the hour. Tariff: Two horse cart or conveyance with driver, each way, 40 cents; one horse, eart or conveyance, each way, 30 cents; one automobile, each way, 30 cents; one horse, each way, 10 cents; each head horned cattle, each way, 10 cents; each head sheep or swine, each way, 5 cents; each passenger, each way, 5 cents; every hundred pounds of freight, 4 cents. Ferry to be placed on service by 1st May; license for five years, and license to give two sureties for $500 jointly. The department reserves the right to reject the boat if found unsuitable or unsafe; to modify
the maximum tariff if deemed expedient, etc. The licensee also to carry over without fee all militiamen, soldiers or sailors when provided with passports or under charge of their proper officer. Licensee has power to commute passenger rates, and to keep tables of rates and sailings placed in a conspicuous place and on board of boat.
3.	Robert L. Sinclair, $350 per annum; Richard K. Murray, $250 per annum; Frank J. Allard, $70 per annum; John Quinn, $10 per annum.
When contract was offered to Mr. Sinclair, he informed the department that he could not provide a boat. The others were asked to operate ferry in accordance with terms of their tender; Mr. Murray did not reply; Mr. Allard would use a scow until he could provide a boat within two months; such arrangement not being satisfactory, the contract was awarded to Mr. Quinn.


CAPTAIN PERCY FLYNN.
[Stage Direction]
Air. MARC1LE (Bagot):
1.	Has Captain Percy Flynn been officially appointed by the Department of Militia adjutant of the 22nd Regiment of the Permanent Force at Quebec?
2.	If so, what was the nature of his services in France with the 22nd, or other unit?
3.	If he has not been appointed, is it true that an order of the headquarters of the Expeditionary Force in England, sent to officers commanding the reserves, amongst others to the 10th Reserve where Captain Flynn was adjutant, to the effect that the adjutants of Reserves should have seen service in France in order to be maintained in their position, or to be put on the general list of officers fit for service in France and subject to reduction in rank if necessary, and in the event of failure to conform to said orders, such officers were to be returned to Canada and placed at the disposal of the Adjutant-General?
4.	Did Captain Flynn agree to go to France in accordance with said orders, or did he prefer to return to Canada and accept an appointment similar to the one he had in England, with the First Depot Battalion, 2nd Regiment of Quebec, at Quebec?
5.	If so, were there not, on the list of the Department of Militia, officers having seen service in France with the 22nd Battalion and who had made application, and were qualified and well recommended, to be appointed, adjutants of the 22nd Regiment of the Permanent Force?
6.	How many officers, having seen service in France with the 22nd Battalion, have applied to serve with the Permanent Force of Canada?
7.	If Captain Percy Flynn had no service in France, and if he returned to Canada under the conditions mentioned in question No. 3, after a number of years in England, is it the intention of the Government to continue him as adjutant of the 22nd, or will the Departmeht of Militia consider the appointment of a former officer of the 22nd, having had service on the firing line in France, as adjutant?
8.	Is it the policy of the Government and the Department of Militia to give a preference
[Stage Direction]
to officers having had service in France who desire to serve in the Permanent Force of Canada, or are all officers placed on the same footing as those who have only seen service in England, Canada or in Siberia?
Hon. Mr. GUTHRIE:: 1.	The appointment of Captain Percy Flynn as adjutant of the 22nd Regiment is in a draft gazette dated the 29th April, which has been submitted to the Privy Council for approval.
2.	He did not see service in France.
3.	This officer was appointed a lieutenant
in the 57th Overseas Battalion in May, 1915, and received promotion to the rank of captain on appointment as adjutant on the 19th January, 1916. He proceeded overseas on the 2nd June, 1916. During his period of service overseas he held the following appointments:	Transferred to the
69th Battalion, 8th June, 1916; appointed assistant adjutant, 21st June, 1916; appointed adjutant, 1st July, 1916; transferred to the 10th .Reserve Battalion, 4th January, 1917; appointed adjutant, 8th January, 1917, which appointment he relinquished on the 29th April, 1918, to return to Canada. The services of Captain Flynn were specially applied for by the General Officer Commanding Military District No. 5, Quebec, in February, 1918, as an experienced officer was necessary to undertake the duties of adjutant of the 1st Depot Battalion, 2nd Quebec Regiment, Quebec, and Captain Flynn was considered to be the best officer for the appointment. His return to Canada was, therefore, approved, and he reported for duty on the 22nd May, 1918. He was subsequently appointed to the Canadian Expeditionary Force (Siberia) and served in Siberia from December, 1918, to (May, 1919, as a company commander.
4.	It is true that officers were called upon to revert to the rank of lieutenant to proceed to France, and the records show that Captain Flynn, on the 25th October, 1917, applied to revert accordingly, and that he was compulsorily retained until he could be suitably replaced as adjutant of the 10th Reserve Battalion by a French Canadian overseas casualty. The records further show that these conditions prevailed until the return of Captain Flynn to Canada was approved by special request referred to in paragraph 3. Under the circumstances, it was not considered that his lack of service in France should debar him from permanent military employment.
5.	A list of applicants for appointment to the 22nd Regiment, a number of whom

served with the 22nd Overseas Battalion in France, is on file in the department.
6.	Twenty-five applications .for appointment to the permanent force have been received from officers who served with the 22nd Battalion in France.
7.	This department concurred in the appointment of Captain Flynn as adjutant of the 22nd Regiment owing to the special requests and recommendations of Lieutenant-Colonel H. Chasse, D.S.O., M.C., and of the General Officer Commanding Military District No. 5, after consideration of the names of all officers who had applied, and having regard to his excellent qualifications for the appointment, this department sees no reason for making any change, providing Captain Flynn continues to prove himself an efficient officer as in the past.
8.	The policy of the department has been, when possible, to make selections to fill permanent force vacancies from officers who have seen service in active theatres of operations during the late war, having due regard to their qualifications and the nature of the appointments for which they are required.


GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN IMPORTS.
Mr. RINFRET :: 1.	What was the amount of imports from Germany and Austria during the year 1919?
2.	What was the total amount of said imports for the first three months of 1920'?


Hon. Mr. BURRELL:: 1.
From Germany	$14,041
From Austria	 779
Total	 $14,820
2.
From Germany	$30,223
From Austria	 48,944
Total	$79,167


INQUIRY RE QUESTION.
Mr. DEVLIN:: Was 'question 32, which is a very simple one and one which could be answered readily, answered?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Question 32 stands.


John Dowsley Reid: I must get the information from the Canadian Pacific Railway and I have not the information as yet.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: As I read the /question, the information would come from the Post Office Department.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Any reference to the
answering of questions should be on the Orders of the Day.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS.

Mr. HAY:: 1.	What are the working hours of the civil
servants in the Inside Service, stenographers, clerks and others?	[DOT]
2.	Are these hours strictly observed?
3.	What salaries are stenographers, clerks and others receiving? That is, the average generally, also average bonus?


Mr. ANDREWS:: 1.	How many married women whose husbands did not serve in< the 'Canadian Expeditionary Force are in the pay of various Government departments at Ottawa?
2.	Is it a fact that the Department of Immigration has in its employ a lady at a salary of $300' per month?
3.	Is this lady the wife or mother of a returned soldier, and was any effort made at the time of her employment to secure the services of a war widow or dependent?
4.	Is this lady's husband in the employ of the Government or of one of the Provincial Governments?
5.	Is it a fact that the daughters of several departmental headis are employed by their fathers in Government service and that in many such cases these young ladies hold positions which could be well filled with men who have been trained by the Department of 'Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment for the Civil (Service, but are unable to secure appointments?


Mr. COPP:: 1.	Did the steamship -Metagama sail from Liverpool carrying soldiers and their families on or about the eighth diay of February, A.D. 1919?
2.	If so, were any complaints made to the MiLitia Department or any other department of the Government as to the condition of said steamer at time of sailing and during said voyage ?
3.	Were any complaints made to the Government or any department thereof as to the treatment accorded to said soldiers, their wives or families during said voyage?
4.	Did a delegation from the city of St. John appear before a committee of the Cabinet on or about the 27'th day of February, 1919, protesting against alLeged ill-treatment of said soldiers and their families during the said voyage?
5.	If so, who comprised said delegation and what members of the Government acted on said Cabinet committee?
6.	Did the Government take any action as a result of said conference? If so, what action and what was the result of same?
7.	Did said delegation file affidavits or solemn declarations of passengers as to the condition of the 'steamer and treatment accorded said passengers during said voyage?
8.	If sq, did the Government hold an investigation concerning said complaints?
9.	What was the result of such investigation?



UNOPPOSED MOTION FOR PAPERS.

Mr. DUFF:: For a copy of all letters, telegrams, reports, documents and other correspondence between the Post Office Department, the Post Office Inspector at Halifax, and any person at Vog-ler's Cove, Nova Scotia, regarding complaints
in connection with the manner in which post office matters are conducted at the said Vogler's Cove.



DOMINION FRANCHISE ACT.

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from May 12, consideration in committee of Bill No. 12 (Hon. Mr. Guthrie) respecting the election of members of the House of Commons and the Electoral Franchise.-Mr. Boivin in the Chair.
The CHAIRMAN:: When progress was reported upon this Bill on Wednesday last, paragraph (k) of clause 2, clauses 32, 63 and 101 had been allowed to stand. All of the other clauses had been agreed to with the exception of clauses 19 and 76, which cannot be adopted until the House has concurred in the required money resolution. Clause 32 had been discussed at length and was still before the committee. Shall clause 32 carry?


Mr. GUTHRIE:: Since this matter was last before the committee I have had the benefit of !a conference with some of my hon. friends opposite with regard to clause 32, in an effort to carry out, if possible, the suggestions made by the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding), the leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King), and other hon. gentlemen opposite. As a result of that conference, I have prepared certain amendments to clause 32, which amendments will, I think, generally speaking, pretty fully meet the suggestions made, although perhaps not in every case to the letter. If the amendments prepared to clause 32 are adopted, the result will be briefly this. In any province of Canada where there is a provincial voters' list not more than two years old, that list shall be adopted as the basis of the Dominion franchise. In cities, towns and villages, or in what are known as urban polling divisions, the procedure laid down in schedule A to the Bill as drawn, will be very nearly followed, there being a few minor amendments to schedule A. But in all rural polling divisions the procedure has been somewhat changed. The provincial list, if not more than two years old, will be accepted as final and complete for rural polling subdivisions, with two provisions, first, that a person may still apply under section 63 of t-he Act to be added on election day and may vote; second, that a person who is not on the provincial polling list may apply to the revising officer of an urban division in the same electoral district to have his name added, and the revising officer is given power to add that name and to notify the

returning officer that the name has been added to the list. Therefore, there will be a double remedy to anybody who has been left off the provincial list and who is a resident of a rural polling division. First, he may go to the poll on election day, be vouched for by two electors who can swear to his qualifications, obtain his ballot and vote. Secondly, he need not wait for election day; he can go directly to the revising officer, have his case determined and have his name added to the list. There is this further provision, that if the revising officer refuses to add his name, after hearing and inquiring into the case, that man shall not subsequently on polling day be entitled to go to the poll and swear himself on. If he does that, we have provided a penalty. The committee will note that the result is this. In a city, town or village, or in a division having cities, towns or villages, the procedure is unchanged and schedule A will prevail. In rural divisions, the procedure is radically changed where there are provincial voters' lists. If there be in existence in any province no provincial voters' lists of less than two years of age since last finally revised and completed, the whole list shall be made in both rural and urban divisions, in urban divisions under schedule A, and in rural divisions under schedule B. This matter was discussed at the conference which we held on Thursday last, and the proposals -seemed to meet with the approval of those present. I have heard that one or two minor objections have since been raised, but the amendments which I have now the honour of moving have been drawn on the basis which I have just outlined. They will involve a considerable amendment to both the schedules of section 32 and a slight amendment to section 33.


Mr. LAPOINTE:: What will be the
machinery for adding the names of women who are not on the provincial lists in the province of Quebec?


Hugh Guthrie: They will go on either
by application to the revising officer or by application to -the deputy returning officer on polling day. I appreciate the point raised by my hon. friend. Personally, I favoured the old arrangement whereby a rural register would be appointed and would see that all the women as well as the men who were entitled to vote were put on the list, thereby avoiding unnecessary expense. It was put to me most squarely on the ground that where there are lists it would be an unnecessary expense to appoint enumerators throughout Canada for rural polling 
divisions when you had these two safety valves-section 63, as well >as an application to the judge. Under the amendment as now proposed women or men who are not on the provincial list will have to apply in either one of the two ways I have indicated.


Mr. DENIS:: I have listened with great interest to the minister's explanation of the amendments. While I have every confidence in the members who assisted the minister in drafting these amendments, I must say that it is hard to appreciate offhand their significance under the new conditions. In the province of Quebec all the women will have to be placed on the list. In the rural divisions they can have their names put on the list, under this new amendment, by applying to the returning officer. How long is he going to sit?


Hugh Guthrie: Five days.


Jean-Joseph Denis: How many revising officers will there be for each constituency?


Hugh Guthrie: In every urban division there will be one registrar up to a population of 4,000, and an additional registrar for each additional 4,000. Under 1,000, of course, it is a rural division. One revising officer is appointed for each electoral list. He is the county judge and has power to appoint as many additional -as -may be necessary.


Jean-Joseph Denis: It seems, then, that the
women will be obliged to travel a long distance to have their names registered.


Hugh Guthrie: They will have to travel to the poll in -any event, and they can vote on polling day without going to the judge.


Jean-Joseph Denis: The difficulty will be this.
There will be 300 electors to each poll. Now it has been said, and with good reason, that it is rather hard to poll 300 votes in one -day in one division, though it can probably be done when all the machinery has been set in order in advance; but if every woman voter has to bring along two witnesses on polling day who will prove that she has a right to vote, that procedure will take some time, and I submit that it will be absolutely impossible for all the women to vote within the time set, on account of the unavoidable delay which this procedure will entail. I think that objection should strike the mind of the minister. It is easy to -calculate how many minutes each person will have to vote when 300 voters have to vote within a certain time, and a calculation will show that the time allowed for each is very limited. There are

bound to be periods during the day when no voters are coming forward, and if there is a crowd of women coming to be sworn in at the end of the day, it will be absolutely impossible for them all to vote under the procedure I have mentioned.


Hugh Guthrie: I was of the same opinion as my hon. friend. I preferred the Bill as originally drawn, but these amendments have been drawn to meet the objections of my hon. friend (Mr. Fielding) and my hon. friend (Mr. Bureau), who pointed out that in cities in the province of Quebec the lists were prepared only once in two years. I do not hink it is possible to meet every suggestion, or to meet everybody's convenience. You cannot grant just as much convenience as you would like in a matter of this kind. The voters have to put themselves out some. However, I do not anticipate even in the case as stated by my hon. friend, that there would be very great difficulty in polling all the votes. A ten-hour day for 300 voters would allow each voter two minutes each, which is more than the average voter takes. Then as a rule they do not all vote. The voters have also another way of getting their names put on the list, by going to the judge, and that would no doubt be done by those who found it convenient to do so. I think that the greater number of those who applied to the deputy returning officer on polling day would be able to vote. I do not mean to say that this is a perfect scheme, but it is the best we have been able to evolve.


Mr. ARMSTRONG (East Lambton):: May I ask the minister to give his reasons for not having an up-to-date list in the rural districts as well as in the cities?


Hugh Guthrie: Under these proposals
it will be just as up-to-date in the rural districts as in the city districts. If there is a provincial voters' list not more than two years old, itt will be adopted, and there is power to add to or strike off that list.


Mr. FIELDING:: The revising officer is a judge?


Hugh Guthrie: Yes. That would be an up-to-date list. As the Bill was drawn, there was no provision for a revision in the country; it was considered that it would involve too much trouble, because people would have to come to the cities, and it might involve too much work for the revising officer. It was thought that if you adopted the provincial list and gave the individual the right to apply personally to get on that list, or to go to the polls on polling 154
day and be sworn in and vote, you would have an up-to-date list for people who desired to vote, at all events.


Mr. ROSS:: In Quebec the names of
women are not on the provincial lists, whereas in Ontario they have been put on the lists. I was not at the conference on Thursday, but as I understand the proposed amendment, application has to be made in person, to the revising officer to be put on the list. Am I right?


Hugh Guthrie: I gave you a copy of the amendment. I do not remember the precise wording at the moment.


James Hamilton Ross: It does not absolutely say so in so many words. I have not had much time to study it carefully, but I think that is the effect. That was not the case under the Bill as originally drawn.


Hugh Guthrie: To apply in person to
the revising officer.


James Hamilton Ross: If it does, I can make the suggestion more pointed. Under the Bill as introduced a voter was entitled to be put on the list by the registrar upon the evidence of a credible person; that was the proposal until this amendment was suggested.


Hugh Guthrie: Have you any objection to that being followed out?


James Hamilton Ross: As far as the revising officer is concerned? [DOT]


Hugh Guthrie: No, to the Bill as originally drafted.


James Hamilton Ross: Yes, because there is- no appeal to the registrar. If it was right to have the registrar, who is to some extent a partisan officer-I do not care what government is in power, whether Liberal or Tory -put on the list a voter on representations made to him by a credible person, why, should it not be right for a judicial officer, without asking the personal appearance of that person, to put on the list the name of a man or woman on similar evidence being offered to him? If the argument was strong in that case, and the original Act was right, it surely would be stronger in this case when the revision is being made by a judicial officer.
I may say that I was not at the conference on Thursday. The hon. gentleman (Mr. Guthrie) has gone a long way and has been very generous in this whole matter. But under the amendment he suggests applying to the province of Ontario, this sit-

uation arises. As the law of the province now stands, lists are prepared for October, 1919, and if the two-year limitation is left in the Act as it is-and I have no objection to that-on the 20th of October, 1921, there will be no provincial list available, and under the suggested amendment of my hon. friend on the 20th of October, 1921, we in the province of Ontario will have to revert to this veTy thing that we are eliminating for two years. Well, if it is good to eliminate the appointment of registrars and the expense attendant thereon for two years, it is good to eliminate them after the two years.
I suggested to my hon. friend this morning an amendment along these lines, drafted by Mr. Biggar, and I think he will be able to work it in properly.
If in the province of Ontario-
This would apply after two years had gone by. I think it should be made to apply now generally.
-no lists have been prepared and completed as aforesaid,-
That is, within two years.
-but municipal lists are required by law to be annually prepared and to include all persons who could be entitled to vote under this Act at the date of their preparation, the last of such lists shall be used as the voters' list for such election-
What does that mean? I suggest that the municipal lists in Ontario as prepared by the municipal authorities under the provincial laws, and which are prepared every year and include the names of all persons who are entitled to vote under this Act, shall be the basis of the Dominion Elections Act; but there shall be added thereto and subtracted therefrom the names which should be added thereto or subtracted therefrom under this Act in the manner my hon. friend has suggested in his amendment. But if he will not- concur in that, I would suggest that he put in the Act the amendment that has been drafted just casually-I do not say it is agreed to or anything like that-by Mr. Biggar to the effect I have mentioned. Because if he does not do that by October, 1921-although we will have complete municipal lists which will be almost man for man and woman for woman the last lists we want fo' Dominion purposes-in the province of Ontario we are thrown back on the appointment of registrars to prepare new lists at a cost of half a million dollars a year. As I say, if it is good up to 1921 it is good after 1921, and I would ask my hon. friend 
in all fairness and as a matter of economy to have that suggested amendment made.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: Is it not a fact that the municipal lists in Ontario are based upon a property qualification? How could you make use of that?


James Hamilton Ross: Under the Bill introduced by Premier Drury and which is before the Ontario Legislature at the present time,-and which, I have no doubt, will he passed before this Parliament rises-the system of making up the municipal lists is being entirely changed. At the time of the last election the enumeration system was adopted and found to work very unsatisfactorily, thousands of men being left off the lists and the expense being very heavy, over $500,000, as I pointed out the other day. But the Ontario Government is now passing a law that every man and woman twenty-one years of age shall be put on the assessment roll, and the assessment roll is made the basis of the voters' list, consequently the voters' list prepared by the municipality are just as complete a basis as can possibly be secured for federal election.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: But that Bill may be changed in the same way as this Bill has been changed; it has not passed the Legislature yet.


James Hamilton Ross: That is true; but even if it is changed, all that will mean will be that the revising officer will have a little more work to do-a few more names to add; it cannot mean anything else.


William Stevens Fielding: With regard to the Nova Scotia lists about which there was some controversy, I am glad to bje able to say that the proposals made by the hon. minister (Mr. Guthrie) go very far to remove the objections which I ventured to offer. You will remember, Mr. Chairman, that I tried to picture the Nova Scotia lists as [DOT] so safe and sound that they could be accepted in their entirety. The Bill departed from them in two points. In urban districts it provided for an appeal to the county judge, which is retained in the Bill as it now stands. While I thought that was unnecessary, I have no objection. Our chief difficulty, however, was in regard to the rural lists; there it was proposed that the Nova Scotia lists under the provincial law should be revised by officials called registrars. I am glad to note that the minister, for various reasons, one being the large expense throughout the Dominion, has withdrawn the provision regarding registrars. He has.

retained, however, this safeguard, that if there are any persons who feel that they have been improperly left off the Nova Scotia lists, they shall have the right to appear at the polls and by there swearing on qualify themselves. As I have already said, I do not like the idea of a man swearing himself on the list on election day. However, the minister has guarded that by the amendment that he has made, and I do not think there is any very serious objection to be urged now. I want to say with regard to elimination of the registrars, that the minister has gone a long way to meet Our wishes, and I hope on other grounds we will be able to come to an understanding. On the Quebec and Ontario lists I must refrain from expressing any opinion, because I have not given so much attention to those as to the lists of my own province.


Mr. ARTHURS:: In all Franchise Acts at present, both provincial and Dominion, special provision is made for the unorganized districts in any province. According to this Act no special provision is made so far as I have been able to discover. I would point out to the minister in charge of the Bill that lists two years old are as a rule absolutely useless in an unorganized territory. The ordinary voters in a mining or lumbering district almost entirely change in the course of two years, and this mode of preparation as suggested by the amendment would practically annul all such lists. There is also this to be considered, that in many cases these lists being in existence, polls will be held in subdivisions where there will be absolutely no voters at the time of the election. On the other hand, the men- who had been voters in those polling divisions will have moved to some Other part of the constituency, or to another constituency, in which they would have no chance to be placed on any of the lists. I think this matter should have the consideration of the minister before pressing the amendment.


Hugh Guthrie: I realize that in unorganized districts where there are no municipal institutions there is more difficulty in regard to the voters lists.


James Arthurs: There is no difficulty
under the system of registration.


Hugh Guthrie: I would like to see a list prepared in unorganized districts within thirty days if it were possible, but that breaks the rule we are applying to the rest of Canada. We must try to have a uniform 1641
system. I have had to tell my hon. friends from Quebec that we cannot make a special provision for Quebec; they must be put to some inconvenience too. If one is going to make an Act to bring every convenience to the door of everybody it is going to be a very difficult thing to frame one that will in the end be practicable. Objections have been raised from the province of Ontario to this arrangement by the hon. member for West Middlesex (Mr. Ross) and objections have been raised to the arrangement on behalf of the provinces of Nova iScotia and New Brunswick. I 'see the difficulty pointed out by my hon. friend from Parry Sound (Mr. Arthurs). If we cannot adopt something that is going to he of general application I do not see anything to do but to make a uniform law and stick to the proposition originally drafted even although it would involve heavy expense. The proposals I make are not made on my own behalf or on behalf of the Government but they are proposals made to meet the objections raised by hon. gentlemen opposite. If they are not satisfied with them there is no use of going on with a proposition that pleases nobody and displeases everybody. I would rather hear a little further discussion before coming to a conclusion; I do not wish to impose my will on the House.


Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: The main purpose of the conference, as I understood it was to see if it were possible to avoid the duplication and the great expense involved in the prepartion of voters1 lists where lists are already prepared and are satisfactory. Each one can speak best in reference to his native province. The present proposal refers particularly to the province of Ontario. The Ontario Government is putting through a law which will require that every year lists shall be made up in every municipality urban an rural, which list will include the name of every man and woman who is entitled to vote.- These lists will be made up year after year. What we ask is that these lists, with the prepartion of which Ottawa has nothing to do, they toeing prepared by the municipality, shall be taken as the basis of the voters lists for federal purposes. If the law stands as it is at present all this work will be done by the Provincial Government, but in addition to that the minute we propose to have a federal election the Dominion Government will have to appoint an army of enumerators to go over the province of Ontario to prepare fresh lists disregarding those lists which

are perfect in themselves. This is an enormous waste of money.


Mr. H. A. MACKIB (Edmonton):: We
have to do that in Alberta and Saskatchewan.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The cost at
the last election ran up to half a million dollars or more. Why should that amount be soent to produce lists less satisfactory? The. question that has arisen with regard to Ontario arises from the fact that we are not certain just when the provincial lists will be completed and what my hon. friend from West Middlesex desires is simply to make certain that there will not be under this Act the expense of the double preparation of the voters' lists. :I think that was also the purpose in regard to the other provinces such as New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Where these lists exist the idea is to use them as the basis of the federal franchise and to save the enormous expense involved in the preparation of new lists.


Ernest Lapointe: In view of the statement of the hon. gentleman (Mr. Guthrie) I must say that my question as to the *means of putting women on the lists in the provinces where they have no vote was not intended as a criticism of the amendment. I very much prefer the amendment to the clause as it stands in the Bill. I think we should do away with this enumerator business altogether. My hon. friend need not say that he will withdraw the amendment because we have criticized it.


Hugh Guthrie: It was not on that account I made that remark but it looked to me as if the amendment did not please hon. members on either side of the House.
Mr. 'LAPOINTE:	I like it better than
the clause.


Hugh Guthrie: My objection to my
hon. friend's statement in regard to the Ontario lists is this: I do not think it a proper thing to make a patchwork of the election law, and that we should have one law for one province and another law for another province. If we cannot get some kind of uniformity we had better stick to the old law. We should have a uniform franchise law and a uniform method of carrying on our elections. The hon. member for West Middlesex and the hon. the leader of the Opposition both take the ground that it may possibly be that in the course of time we will have municipal lists which will suit our purpose, but they cannot give the assurance that that will be so. The hon. member for West Middlesex

is hugging a Bill-I have not had the opportunity of examining it-and he says that the Drury Government is going to do so and so. It has not done it yet. As a matter of fact in the province of Ontario we have the provincial voters' lists prepared last fall still in force, and if this House dissolved to-day those voters' lists would be the basis of the lists that we would have to use. It is beneath our dignity to wait on the Drury Government and see what they are going to do. They will probably change the law; it may be amended and reamended. When they see what we have adopted they may meet our suggestions. I cannot see any sense or reason in the suggestion that because a Bill has been introduced into the Ontario Legislature which may or may not ultimately suit the case, we should deliberately drop something we believe to be the best suited to carry out the purpose in view in order to meet some policy which they may adopt in the Ontario Legislature and which they may undo two or three weeks hence. In regard to Nova Scotia, I agree with the hon. member (Mr. Fielding) that the object to be attained there was the avoidance of expense and duplication of effort, and that it was possible for us to do that for the simple reason that they have provincial lists there just as they have in British Columbia, where they have an annual preparation of voters' lists. In Quebec they have one every two years.


Jean-Joseph Denis: Every year.


Hugh Guthrie: Every year in the rural parts, but every two years in the large cities.


Jean-Joseph Denis: Yes.


Hugh Guthrie: We are changing the
clause as originally drawn from one year to two years bo meet the case of the cities in the province oif Quebec, but we give it general application throughout Canada and the whole of the clause has been drawn to that end. No matter whether it is Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, or any other province that has a provincial list, we adopt, that list. I am not going to make exceptions. I do not counsel the making of exceptions for different provinces. I do not think it would be wise or fair to do so, and if the amendment is not going to be better received on both sides of the House than it has been I am satisfied it is going to disappoint a great many people. That-is the reason I would like to have the matter more fully discussed. I do not want to have it condemned, because there is merit

in it, but if we are going to add to it, to take from it, and re-write the whole thing, why let it go.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I say to my hon. friend that we are not taking any exception for the purpose of having an amendment which would be generally applicable; the point we are raising at the moment is simply one of interpretation to carry out the spirit of the amendment. The purpose of the amendment being to use, if possible, the lists that are in existence, we simply want to make sure that if those lists are in existence they will be used and that they will not be lost sight of altogether through failure to draw the attention of the Government to a possible consequence of the kind.


Hugh Guthrie: It is a very grave exception to draw an amendment to provide that in the province of Ontario we shall accept the municipal lists, because if at the next session of the legislature of the province they change their method of getting up the provincial lists we shall be all away from it. Then we would have adopted the Ontario municipal lists, and the legislature would have provided for new provincial lists.


James Hamilton Ross: I do not think my hon.
friend quite understood the purport of my suggested amendment, although doubtless he appreciates the spirit in which I made it; it was only to carry out what I understood was the conclusion arrived at in the conference on Thursday. Now the suggested amendment which I made was this: The time may arrive when more than two years may elapse and there will be no provincial list.


Hugh Guthrie: But there is a provincial list.


James Hamilton Ross: I know that as well as my hon. friend does. However, I do not want to get into a controversy with him. I admit he has been very generous in trying to meet these cases, but I am only pointing out that there is one little point that he has not meant by his amendment.


Hugh Guthrie: I have met the only
case I tried to meet. I never agreed-and never heard it suggested until to-day-to adopt the provincial list.


James Hamilton Ross: I am not saying that the hon. gentleman is not correct, I am only pointing out a situation which may arise. Supposing election does not take place until two years from last October. There will then be no up-to-date provincial lists in
force. The amendment I suggested was simply this: If in Ontario the provincial legislature enacts that municipal lists shall be prepared annually-which we think they will enact-and that on all such lists the name shall appear of the persons who are entitled to vote under our Dominion Franchise Act-if that happens and the provincial lists are more than two years old then the municipal lists containing all the names of the electors that are entitled to be on them under the Dominion Franchise Act that we are enacting to-day shall be taken as a basis and names added thereto or subtracted therefrom according to the very plan my hon. friend has set out. I will frankly admit that the amendments my hon. friend has made are a great improvement on the original Bill, and we appreciate them very much. It may be the suggestions that I have made are not good, but I am not making them in any spirit of opposition. I am advancing them in the hope, if possible, of still further improving the Bill and saving expense, a thing we all admit would be a wise procedure. That is the whole object of my suggestion.


Mr. CALDER:: In the preparation of the municipal lists by the municipal authorities each year will the names of persons be included regardless of whether or not they had the proper qualification?


James Hamilton Ross: My hon. frieend has put a
very fair question and in reply to him I will read the clause from the Ontario Bill. It is section eighty-six, which reads as follows :
In addition to the particulars required by The Assessment Act, to be entered upon the assessment roll, every assessor shall enter upon the roll the name of every person who is of the full age of twenty-one years, a British subject, and who has been a resident of Ontario for a period of nine months-
In this Bill the period is nine months, but I believe an amendment has been adopted to provide that the period shall be twelve months

-prior to the date fixed for the assessor to begin to make up his roll, and who is a resident of the municipality and qualified in other respects as the assessor believes, to vote at elections to the Assembly.
My hon. friend will see how broad this provision is. It applies to every person twenty-one years of age, who is a British subject, who has resided in Ontario for nine, or twelve months, and who is a resident of the county.


James Alexander Calder: That being the case what is the provision of the proposed law in so far

as regards making that the provincial list at the time of the election?


James Hamilton Ross: L will explalin to my hon. friend: That is the (basis of the provincial . list, and once a dissolution of the provincial House, or a vacancy dn the Assembly, occurs in an indiivlidual city, an election board, consisting of the county judge and four other persons, sits and takes that list as .a basis. In each muniicipalilty they take that liist and add to, or strike off, the names of persons who -are entitled to vote for a member of the legislature. But the Bill of my hon. Mend (Mr. Guthrie), with suggested amendments, has provided just as efficient machinery whereby that list can be taken 'as a basis and by the. revising officer-for whose appointment the Bill provides-namep can be added to, or struck off the list just as in the Ontario Act. We are quite ready to concur in the machinery which my hon. friend has provided except that we would like to see this one suggestion adopted. That suggestion,
I would say, is made in all kindness.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: My hon. friend has juist read from a Bill Which has not yet been passed by tire legislature of Ontario.


Mr. ROBB:: That is absolutely true.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friend who has just spoken (in regard to the Ontario list, will see the significance of what is in our mind when I mention to him that until the provincial legislature is dissolved there will not be in existence a provincial list for Ontario, although .alii this work of registration will have been completed year after year. The present Government in Ontario may hold office for the next four years, and we recognize that unless some provision of the kind suggested is made the provincial list may not apply at all at the next general election and under the machinery o'f 'the present Bill the lists would have to be prepared by a great army of enumerators, and the advantages that would 'be derived from using the existing lists would be lo^t.


Mr. SIMPSON:: Lists are prepared annually by the municipalities in organized districts, 'but we have unorganized districts in Northern Ontario, and I presume also in Northern Quebec.


Mr. GAUVREAU:: No.


Thomas Edward Simpson: There are large numbers of voters whose names would not be on any municipal list, and if it is incumbent that

they should appear liin person before >the revising officer in order to have their nam.es added to the voters' lists it would mean in some cases their travelling three hundred or three hundred land fifty miles for that purpose. Therefore I think we should consider such a provision very carefully before we adopt it.


Mr. SEXSMITH:: I must say that I am absolutely opposed to the adoption, as a basis for our own lists, of a provincial list that may be two years old, and I am opposed to adopting a municipal list, leaving it to be revised in the manner that is suggested. Any man who, has had experience in connection with the preparation of muni-dipal lists knows that there is not a municipality in the province of Ontario-or in any dther province for that matter, where the assessor makes up the list-where there are not scores of voters left off every list. Now, in order to have 'those voters placed on the list one of two ways is open to you: First, .an appeal may be made to the registrar, who may be ten or twenty mites away. You ask the individual voter to appear in person before the registrar in order to have his name placed on the list, and two citizens must -accompany him to the poll and also take an oath. Otherwise that man cannot cast his ballot. I have seen sixty names taken off the list in a poll of less than three hundred-and that a list which had been prepared the same year. Now, if you have twenty or thirty people coming to a poll who must be sworn, each with two or three others who must be sw-orn, you will never be able to poll all the votes. At the last election, in polls of two hundred and fifty or three hundred, or more, it was found difficult to get the votes polled-during the prescribed hours, even though only an occasional person had to be sworn. A federal franchise should be a federal franchise, independent of the provincial, municipal or any other authority. Surely Canada as a whole is sufficiently interested in the election of members to the House of Commons to be willing to bear the expense of having an up-to-date voters' list. In the past we have had the experience of one province having one law and another another. I remember when one man could vote two or three times in one province and eoiild only vote once in another. Hon. members from Quebec know that it is only a few years since men in their province could, if they had the property qualifications, vote in as many different polls and in as many different
I

places as they could get around to in the hour.


Mr. BELAND:: But in different ridings.


John Albert Sexsmith: I know, but it was
the case of one man voting two or three times, whereas in another province one man could vote only once.


Jean-Joseph Denis: Of course, he had to be
qualified in each riding.


John Albert Sexsmith: We used to have a
similar law in Ontario, but we changed it and adopted the principle of one man one vote. I believe in the principle of one man one vote, one woman one vote, all over Canada, and that we should have an up-to-date list-a list which is right up to the minute.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think that
this point we are now discussing in regard to Ontario' really need not have been raised at all, if we have in mind what took place in debate here before the matter was discussed in committee. In the conference we were simply seeking to give expression to what had been said on the floor of Parliament in regard to Ontario by the Acting Solicitor General himself. Let me read from Hansard, page 2430. The question in our minds was as regards the application of the Ontario lists, and I asked the Acting Solicitor General at the time:
Assuming that the Ontario law were now passed and that lists were prepared under it by November or December of this year; then those lists would be used?
Mr. Guthrie: They would be valid for twelve months.
Now, that was the impression we all had at the conference. That was the impression that I think every one had until this morning, when my hon. friend from West Middlesex (Mr. Ross) pointed out that a different construction of the Ontario law might leave us in the position of having no Ontario lists until the provincial House bad dissolved. Well, that was a situation that we had never contemplated, either in discussion here, when we decided to have a conference, or during the conference itself. All that we are suggesting at the moment is that if possible we give expression to what was in our minds, not at the conference but in the committee when this matter was discussed the other night, namely that we use for federal purposes lists that have already been prepared and concerning which there can be no question.


Mr. MORPHY:: I am not quite so clear about the things that are to be done under this Ontario Bill as the leader of the Opposition seems to be. We do not know what the law of Ontario is going to be; moreover, no matter what it is going to be, no matter what it does when finally passed, we have no control over legislation respecting the Ontario franchise or qualifications for voters. There is really involved in this question the thought of what an interesting and difficult situation might arise in the changing views of parties in the Ontario legislature. There is a suggestion from some hon. members that we want to avoid expense. I think every hon. member desires to avoid unnecessary expense, but after all I do not think that we should throw too much expense upon the individual, upon the people at large. That is what the suggestion which has been made would do; it would put every person who is unfortunate enough to be off the list under the obligation of travelling, perhaps, some distance at considerable expense in order to make personal application to have his name put on, and to prosecute appeals, and so on; and upon voting at polling day to bring two neighbours to vouch for him. Here are three oaths; a most complicated piece of machinery, throwing upon the public at large what I conceive ought to be done by the Government-that is, the making of a complete,- definite and up-to-date franchise law under which every one would know that his name was on the list, provided he did not by supineness or neglect fail to reach the forum at home through which he might get his name upon it. It looks to me as if the tail were wagging the dog. May I throw out the suggestion to hon. gentlemen that we are really engaged in drafting a franchise law for the whole Dominion? The franchise is a valuable right concerning which the public at large are zealous as well as jealous, and it is the duty of this Parliament to make out a proper list, no matter what the expense may be. Under the Bill as proposed, a part of the expense, it is true, will be avoided in the case of those provinces which have lists. If every province had a list-and I do not see why they should not -the work would be largely done, and, if it was properly done, the only additional expense would be that involved in picking up the few persons who had failed to get on the provincial lists. I do not think that the suggestion of expense involved in bringing that about may be looked upon as an insuperable difficulty. Take Prince Edward

Island as a case in point. They have no lists at all. A man walks up to the polling booth and presents his qualifications in the shape of having paid his poll tax, or otherwise; he votes, even though there never was a list upon which his name could be put. I do not know how far I should be right in saying that it is worth while having a list in Prince Edward Island, but it seems to me that if every province were listed either by this Parliament or by the local legislature, there would be a tendency to bring the situation to a finality. But to put upon the individual here and there who is left off the list the onus and the extreme expense of getting his name on does not appeal to me as a democratic way of dealing with the public who desire the franchise. Surely this Government is big enough to carry out its own' franchise laws. In fact, we were pretty well agreed in this regard until my hon. friend (Mr. Ross) threw a monkey wrench into the machinery and brought on this discussion. I am satisfied that if the provincial lists were to follow this legislation instead of our following provincial legislation, as hon. gentlemen opposite want us to do, a solution of the whole question would be found.
We were very close to having a list that would be satisfactory to all hon. members; but the hon. member (Mr. Ross), as the Acting Solicitor General says, hugging to himself a Bill that is not a Bill, an Act that is not an Act, an Act that may to-morrow be abandoned altogether and not passed, would put this Parliament into the position of following the arguments founded upon that flimsy basis, and of passing legislation that would not be operative at all because either of the failure of that Bill to be passed, or, if it be passed, later on to be changed, thus throwing all the machinery out of gear.


James Hamilton Ross: I did not intend to throw
any monkey wrench into the machinery at all, and I do not think I have done so. My hon. friend will see that I did not say that this Act had been passed or was going to be passed or that any other Act was going to be passed. My suggested amendment is entirely hypothetical; it may be operative or it may not. If certain things occur, it will become operative. If in Ontario no lists have been prepared and completed as aforesaid, that is, if no provincial lists have been prepared and completed for provincial purposes within the two years, then there is a hiatus and we would have to appoint registrars.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: This is based on an "if." I understood my hon. friend was going to say that municipal lists were to be prepared every year.
Mr, ROSS: If my hon. friend will allow me to finish my suggested amendment, I think he will see that my suggestion has some merits. If lists had been prepared and completed, they would be used as aforesaid, but the municipal lists are required by law to be prepared annually and to include all persons who would be entitled to vote under this Act.


John Albert Sexsmith: That is not the case
at the present time in Ontario, is it?


James Hamilton Ross: The present time would not
be affected at all, because provincial lists will be in force for two years from the 20th October, 1919; but if this time should expire and there are no provincial lists in force, and if Ontario, by any accident or by design, should pass this legislation which is now before the legislature, my suggested amendment becomes effective. In that case there is an annual revision by the municipalities and all names which would be on the lists prepared by the House of Commons are put on the municipal lists, and those lists shall be adopted.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: 


James Hamilton Ross: If that does not happen, my suggested amendment will not become effective.


Mr. MACK  IE@East Edmonton: We might as well be frank in this matter. The question that is bothering my hon. friends opposite is not one of expense, if we have regard to what transpired in the country when they had control of expenses in the conduct of elections. What is troubling them most now is this, that if we can prevent enumerators from being appointed under this Act, as they would be, going around from house to house and making the enumeration and using their influence, as was done in the West when the provincial elections were held, it is the desire of the Opposition to prevent that as far as they possibly can. My hon. friend (Mr. Ross) has nothing other in view than the fact that an enumerator appointed by the Government has an opportunity of going from individual to individual and imposing his personal views upon him, and if the enumerator is an appointee of the Government, he has a certain amount of influence. That is the objection raised by the Opposition, but it is not stated, as a fact.


Mr. EULER:: Is it not a good objection?
(Mr. MACKIE (East Edmonton): Yes it is a good one, but what is practised upon me in my province, I want to practise upon the other fellow. I am willing to be imbued with a Christian spirit to a large extent, but not to the extent of turning the other cheek to the enemy. In a constituency such as I represent, which is 700 miles long by an average of 150 wide. I take the provincial list that has been prepared by the enumerators of the Alberta Government, and who is going to tell me at Fort Chipewyan or at Fort Smith, five or six hundred miles away from Edmonton, who should be on that list? Are you going to place on me the onus of sending men up there at a cost of five or six hundred dollars each to check up that list for me and find out whether all the Indians have been put on ' it or not. If the provincial lists were prepared to my satisfaction in an honest manner, I would be quite willing to accept them; but I know how elections are run in Alberta, and you would adopt the provincial lists of Alberta, because in 1923 or in the fall of 1922 the Provincial Government must go to the people, and I assume, unless there is something that I do not know of in the federal law, this Government must also go to the people before 1923. In that case we would be within the two year period when we are bound to accept the provincial lists such as they are. It is all right to speak about revision, but who is going to look after and pay for it? Some time ago I gave in this House an instance where men's names had been placed on the list, and the last night before the deputy returning officer gets the lists for the poll, the enumerator who made the list has power under the law to erase every one of those names from the list. It is a noted fact to-day that, as a result of what has been practised in our province, people are applying by the hundreds to this Government for naturalization papers. Why? Because during the election these people were given naturalization application papers. They believed they were naturalized; they were put on the list, and they voted. Are we going to accept this list? Am I to be responsible for going around- every Ruthenian community in my constituency to find out if everybody is properly on the list or not? I would rather have an enumerator go around and do that work, even if he uses his influence, because if so, that is exactly what has been practised upon us in that province for the last few years. Let my hon. friends opposite
admit that they do not want these enumerators because they are afraid that these enumerators are part and parcel of a machinery that will be used against them. Then we shall be able to deal with my hon. friends.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: As regards the enumerators, let me be perfectly frank. I feel the electorate generally has not the same confidence in a list prepared by enumerators as in a list prepared in the regular way for municipal and provincial purposes ard serving also federal purposes. If we can, in working on this measure, do anything which will help to bring about in Canada a system of preparation of lists which will serve for municipal, provincial and federal purposes, we shall be rendering a service to all three organized groups. As my hon. friend (Mr. Morphy) said, that was the thought that was in our minds at the conference the other day, coupled with *an endeavour to give expression to what had been virtually agreed on between the two sides in the previous evening's discussion. I would suggest that we consider the amendments which the minister has introduced, in the light of what he himself has in mind, namely, framing something that will be applicable to the whole Dominion without exception one way or another. That is the basis on which we should proceed. After we have adopted the general suggestion, we might consider whether we should go further than that and add some amendments to meet a condition that is temporary, and that will exist possibly only for the next year or two. But to throw aside what is of general application simply because there has been brought to the attention of the committee a circumstance that has a bearing on one province for one election, would, I think, be a great mistake and very unfortunate.


Mr. MACKIE (East Edlmonton):: Because it may be favourable to Ontario or Quebec to adopt a certain method, is that any reason why I should support that method when it is objectionable to me?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Not at all.


Herbert John Mackie: Then
make my province an exception. I do not want the provincial list, and I am going to vote against this amendment.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think in the province of Alberta the lists are prepared by the system of enumeration, and the suggestion that is now being made will not apply to that province at all.


Herbert John Mackie: But if a Dominion election is held within two years after a provincial election, the provincial lists form the basis of the Dominion lists, and I must accept those lists whether they have been prepared correctly or not. If I were a candidate in the same constituency, I would be put to the trouble and expense of going to every individual on that list to find out whether he was properly on the list, and whether men who were entitled to be on the list had ben left off. Who is going to pay for that? Suppose theTe was no provincial list: I am entitled to my enumeration, anyhow. But in the case of a Dominion election toeing held within two years after a provincial election, I am bound to accept the provincial lists as a basis for the Dominion lists, and I would have to have enumerators going from one place to another throughout a constituency 700 miles by 150 to ascertain whether these lists were properly made up. I say the Government should pay for that. If I have to do it in the next election I shall not run, because I have not the money to do it.


James Arthurs: I want to protest against the suggestion that the northern parts of Ontario and the unorganized districts throughout Canada are ashing for special treatment. These unorganized districts have always been accorded special treatment in this regard under the law. The Franchise Bill as introduced provided for a system of registration by enumerators, which was essentially the practice followed in the unorganized territories in the past. So we are asking for no special treatment for these unorganized districts in the preparation of the lists, because that has always been the law.
I would also point out that if the present amendment should carry, it will disfranchise thousands of good citizens in Northern Ontario and other unorganized parts of Canada, and we would also have cases in the unorganized portions where there would not be a single inhabitant in some of the polling divisions. I know divisions in my own riding that had a voting population of 200 upwards, but where when the poll was held next year, there were no voters except the returning officer and the poll clerk. The men who had been in that polling division had moved away to other parts, and I say that if this amendment is adopted, thousands will be deprived of their vote through having moved away, or they will have to travel a long distance and give up two or three days' time to make a personal appearance before the judge to have their names put on the list. If they took the 
alternative and appeared on polling day to vote, who is there in a mining or lumbering district who -could swear that these men, hundreds of them, were entitled to vote? I say the provision is absolutely unworkable.
I Tepeat, we are not asking for any special treatment for the unorganized portions of Canada, but simply for the franchise law as it has stood on the statute book for years.


William Daum Euler: I would not like to subscribe to the doctrine enunciated by my hon. friend (Mr. H. A. Mackie). He apparently feels that his party has -been getting the worst of it, by reason of certain actions of Provincial Governments, and he would like to get even with them in Dominion elections. I would not care to endorse that principle.


Herbert John Mackie: The
hon. member does not quite understand me. I pointed out what I considered were errors practised by the Povincial Government, and I say you should not force me to adopt the results of those errors. Hon. gentlemen opposite say that we should not have enumerators, because they see an evil in that. It is an evil that has been practised against us. I say that if it is an evil, that is no reason why I should have to adopt the result of that evil. If there is an evil in having enumerators it is only what is practised by the other side.


William Daum Euler: The hon. gentleman if
struck on the one cheek would not be content to turn the other, but it occurs to me that if this method is not adopted, and you place the making of the lists in the hands of partisans he would possibly be struck on both cheeks at once if a different kind of government came into power in this country. What I rose to say was this: While I appreciate what my hon. friend-(Mr. Arthurs) has said as being perhaps the only valid objection to the suggestion that has been made from this side of the House, I shall support the proposal of the hon. member (Mr. Ross) because I believe we shall thereby get a more complete and a fairer list at less expense. I have no particular complaint to make so far as the elections of 1917 are concerned with regard to the enumerators in my constituency. They were not perfect, but I have no special complaint to make. I do say this, however: Municipal lists prepared by assessors who ard, we might say, experts in that particular work are almost certain to be more complete and more accurate than lists that are prepared by men who are employed in

many cases, not so much for their ability in that particular work, but perhaps more for partisan purposes. I am not going to make any criticism of that, because no matter what government is in power, whether it be Liberal, Conservative, Unionist, Farmer, or any other, the enumerators are pretty sure to be selected from amongst the Government's own supporters.


Herbert John Mackie: If you lived in a province where it was possible for the provincial enumerator to erase as many names off the list as he liked just about six hours before the poll opened, would you be willing to accept that list as a basis for your Dominion list, and be put to the personal expense and trouble of checking the list?


William Daum Euler: That may be a very fair objection, but the point I was going to make was that the amendment proposed by my hon. friend (Mr. Ross) would not affect the province of Alberta at all.


Herbert John Mackie: That is quite right.


William Daum Euler: But as regards the province of Ontario I say the Government would do a great deal better to adopt the lists that are prepared by men who are better qualified than anybody else you could possibly select, than to have the lists prepared by men selected haphazard, according to their partisan affiliations. In the cities you have men appointed as assessors who are reputable in every way, men of ability, and who know practically every citizen in the community. They are not very apt to overlook any one, and as they put names on the list for municipal purposes, it is not likely that they will be governed in the slightest degree by a man's political belief or leanings. I support the suggestion of my hon. friend (Mr. Ross) because I believe it will mean we will get lists that are fairly made up without any reference to a person's political belief, or colour or stripe, or anything of that kind. The case was mentioned here .last week of the enumerators in the city of Toronto who had left
30,000	names off the list. I submit, Mr. Chairman, that that could not happen under the aseesors' system. According to fhe amendments submitted by the Acting Solicitor General, provincial lists are to govern if they are not more than two years old. I see no objection why, beyond that time, we should not accept the lists prepared by the assessors. If the Bill now toe-fore the Ontario' Legislature goes through-


Mr. HENDERS:: Why put the two-year
limitation on at all?


William Daum Euler: I would be quite satisfied, as far as I am concerned, to change that. But if after the two-year period you want to use lists complete and free from most of the objections that can be urged in political affairs, you cannot do better than accept the lists prepared by the assessors. As far as the other provinces are concerned, I admit that I know very little about their electoral machinery, and there may be very serious objection to the amendment. I think the point mentioned by the hon. member for Parry Sound (Mr. Arthurs) is probably well taken. But if these assessors' lists are taken I think we shall get the best lists available.


Mr. MANION:: I desire to point out one weakness in the proposal of the hon. member for Middlesex (Mr. Ross) supported by the hon. member for Waterloo (Mr. Eluler) in regard to adopting municipal lists. For example, I happen to own property in the city of Fort William and also in the city of Port Arthur, and those cities are in separate constituencies. Consequently my name being on the municipal lists of both cities I could, according to this proposal, vote in both constituencies.


William Daum Euler: Those municipal lists are to be taken only as a basis. [DOT]


Robert James Manion: Property owners on the
municipal lists are absolute voters. I go across and vote in Port Arthur at every municipal election and dozens of others do the same.


William Daum Euler: I do not think it is the
intention that those municipal lists shall be adopted holus bolus; they are simply to serve as a basts.


Robert James Manion: I quite understand that.
But, for example, take a man on the voters' list in the city of Toronto and also on the voters' list of the city of Hamilton, which is only a short run by automobile, and he may be also on the voters' lists of other municipalities in the neighbourhood-I am not acquainted with their names-he might be on half a dozen voters' lists.


William Daum Euler: He can practise personation, of course.


Robert James Manion: It is not a case of personation; he would be voting legally because his name is on the municipal list.


William Duff: No, he has to vote where he resides.


Mr MANION:: I vote in the municipal
elections of Port Arthur and of Fort William.


Mr. BE  LAND@: That is quite right.
Mr. MA'NODON:	If the municipal lists
are adopted for the province of Ontario, my name will be on the voters' lists for the two constituencies I have referred to.
Mr. BELAiND:	If my hon. friend is on
two lists, what of it? It is one man one vote.


Robert James Manion: Then if the municipal lists are adopted, and my name is not struck off either the Fort William or the Port Arthur list, I could vote in the two constituencies.


Henri Sévérin Béland: No.


Robert James Manion: However, Mr. Chairman, it is quite obvious to any one listening to the discussion that it is impossible to prepare any law to suit every one on both sides of this House. The members of the Opposition have brought up many amendments to the various clauses, and I think the minister in charge of the Bill has been very fair in adopting them, but if he is going to adopt every suggestion from every quarter, we will have to sit here until September. I would like to see a general law adopted that will he as fair as possible to the whole Dominion, but I do not think it is wise for the minister to attempt to satisfy every hon. member.


Ernest Lapointe: /-Will my hon. friend say which of the suggestions made by hon. members on this side of the House have been adopted by the other side?


Robert James Manion: I do not know that I could give them in absolute detail.


Ernest Lapointe: I do not know of one to date.


Robert James Manion: I think objection has
come to a number of clauses from the other side that have been adopted by the minister, and he can give the details.


Hugh Guthrie: I am afraid that the
hon. member for Quebec East has not been very regular in his attendance.


Ernest Lapointe: I have been here all
the time.


Hugh Guthrie: You must have heard
those suggestions adopted, then.


Ernest Lapointe: No.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: In order that we may know exactly where we were at the

time of this conference, allow me to remind the House twlha!t was said the other evening as to what had changed the feeling of most of us on this side. When this Bill was first introduced nothing hlad been said about the possibility Of the Ontario Government devising any machinery tor the purpose of preparing election lists. The result was that as we read this Bill it seemed to us that the Government wished to adopt the system of enumeration for the whole Dominion. Once, however, the Ontario Government introduced a Bill which provided machinery for the preparation otf lists, and this Act by remaining as it is, just in the words in which it is at present expressed, indicated that where provincial lists were available those lists would be used, our whole attitude changed, because our objection was, first of all, to this system of enumeration, which we think is thoroughly bad; and, in the second place, to the additional expense of preparing separate lifet.s. On Wednesday evening in speaking to the minister I drew attention to the fiadt that our (attitude had changed, because according to his own interpretation of the Bill, since he introduced it in the House, if there were lists in Ontario prepared by the Ontario Government those would be the lists which -we would use in federal elections. The point that has been raisea to-day through the amendment of my hon. friend from Middlesex (Mr. Ross) as brought to the notice of the House, was not thought of on Friday night, and has not been thought of since, and was not in the mind of the minister (at the time at which we expressed our willingness to accept section 32 a>s it stands, lif it had the inters pretation which we believed it to have. Let me read what was said in debate so that hon. members may see the situation for themselves.
At page 2430, speaking myself, I said:
In order to make clear the effect of the law as it would be if we passed this section,-
That is, section 32 as St stands at the present time.
-let me put a question to the minister.
Assuming that an election were to take place in Canada within a year of the time the Drury Government was formed, that is, before November of this year, then that election would' be held on the lists used in the last provincial election?
Mr. Guthrie: If they were not more than twelve months old.
Mr. Mackenzie King: If an election came before November of this year, the lists used for federal purposes so far as Ontario is concerned would be the lists that were used in the last provincial election. Now if the genera] election

came in December, before the law now being drafted in Ontario, was put into motion, then the lists would be prepared by enumerators in accordance with the provisions of this Act, without any reference whatever to the law that the Ontario Government is putting through at the present time.
Mr. Guthrie: No, unless lists were prepared under that law.
Mr. Mackenzie King: Assuming that the Ontario law were now passed and that lists were prepared under it by November or December of this year then those lists would be used?
Mr. Guthrie: They would be valid for twelve months.
Mr. Mackenzie King: But if they were not prepared until say March or April of next year and a general election took place before then, lists would be prepared under the provisions of this Act?
Mr. Guthrie: Well, I understand that the proposal is that the Ontario Bill shall be passed and that the provincial lists for this year shall be prepared under it. I understand mat they have to be prepared for municipal purposes in any case.
Mr. Mackenzie King: I simply wanted to make the point clear.
Mr. Guthrie: I think that the Ontario law will be in force by December next, anyway. There might be a month or two after November and before the new provincial lists come during which, if a general election were held, we might have to prepare new lists.
Clearly what the minister believed and what he gave the House to understand at that time was that under section 32 as it is tin the Bill now, irrespective of any conference one way or the other, if the Drury Government passes the Bill which is before the Ontario legislature at the present time, which makes provision for lists based on municipal lists prepared toy assessors, those lists would be the lists used for federal elections, provided that those lists were prepared within this next year.
That was the understanding that we had in this House and it was to give effect to that understanding that we had the conference. I drew attention to the fact that the minister's interpretation of the Act as it was expressed made us seem very much closer together than we had believed would have been possible. The reason I say that is that when this Bill was introduced there was no thought of making provision for the use of Ontario lists whereas the use of provincial lists being provided for as matters are at present the complexion of things is changed. If we can consider the amendments which my hon. friend from West Middlesex has suggested as covered by the interpretation which the minister has given to the Ontario Act, I am perfectly satisfied. I do not think +here is any need to go a step further. With reference to the point which my hon. friend has raised, if there is a doubt of any kind we would be negligent if we did not
draw attention to it and suggest the insertion of a subclause which would remove any possibility of doubt. When a matter of a complicated kind is under con- ' sideration men who have the opportunity of sitting down together and thinking only of what is going to be of 'the greatest service to all concerned can perhaps work it out more clearly than can be done in a discussion where we jump from one subjedt to another.


Mr. TWEEDIE:: Do the provincial officials have absolute authority in connection with the revising of the provincial lists?


Hugh Guthrie: What list does my hon. friend refer to?


Thomas Mitchell March Tweedie: The provincial lists
which are to form the basis of the enumeration.


Hugh Guthrie: The provincial officers would have the authority while they are provincial lists but they are, under this Bill, accepted as the basis of the federal lists and the final _ authority in urban centres would be the judges and in the rural centres the judges and the deputy returning officers when a man goes to the poll and asks for a vote. I do not quite agree with the statement of the leader of the Opposition. In the discussion which took place on Wednesday night there was no confusion in my mind about provincial or municipal lists. The first time I saw the amendment proposed by the hon. member for West Middlesex and saw the words "municipal lists" I said: "That won't go;
I will not agree to that?" When you propose to use provincial lists approved by a province and used' in the elections in a province that is one thing but when you propose to use municipal lists that is something entirely different. I think I said at the time that I would approve of provincial lists provided the age was limited and that is what I am prepared to abide by. There was a meeting held on Thursday morning and at that conference we reached an agreement. The leader of the Opposition, the hon. member for West Lamtoton (Mr. Pardee) and the hon. member for North Essex (Mr. Kennedy), all from Ontario, were at that conference. I raised the question that 1 have raised to-day. I think we left that conference virtually in agreement and I spent the necessary time to draw the amendments. They are pretty complicated amendments to draw, they entailed a great deal of difficulty but I thought that I had finally found a way out of i't. Now we are

met with the suggestion that whereas the province of Ontario has no provincial lists we should accept the municipal lists. The province of Saskatchewan has only municipal lists. There is no official provincial *"iist in the province of Saskatchewan until there is an election. That is the system which Premier Drury intends to adopt in the province of Ontario. I do not agree that we should wait on the whim or fancy of the Ontario Government in this respect. We are going a long distance when we say we will adopt the provincial lists as the basis of our federal franchise. We are going a long distance when we say that they may be two years old. We are going a very long distance when we drop out the original proposition of registration or enumeration in rural districts. Farther than that we have never been asked to go, and farther than that we do not purpose going. When you do give way the hon. member for Quebec Fast (Mr. Lapointe) gets up and says you have never accepted a suggestion or anything of the kind. He must have been in the House while this matter has been under consideration and he will remember that 1 .amended section 16, at the suggestion of the hon. member for George Etienne Cartier (Mr. Jacobs); I amended section 29 at the suggestion of the hon. member for North Waterloo (Mr. Euler); I amended section 28 in regard to the polling subdivisions at the request of the leader of the Opposition; I amended section 64 at the request of the leader of the Opposition; section 80 at the request of the leader of the Opposition and I propose to amend section 100, when we come to it, at the request of the hon. member for West Lambton (Mr. Pardee).


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I do not think that my hon. friend from Quebec East (Mr. Lapointe) was referring to the genera! question but just to a particular matter.


Hugh Guthrie: You do not get credit for anything you do agree to. I have not .agreed to these amendments because I thought they made the Bill more workable but .simply because hon. gentlemen opposite thought that they made it better. Now I think we have come to a time when the opinion *of the House should prevail. There is a very strong feeling on this side of the House (hat the -amendments are unworkable but I am not going to press them for a minute. 1 think the best thing we can do is to ask that the clause stand for further consideration. Otherwise I am prepared to withdraw the amendments, if nothing is going to be gained by them. Let the clause stand. It

will have to stand for a considerable time because the Budget is coming down tomorrow. We might go on to sections 100 or 101.


Herbert John Mackie: The hon. gentleman said that the amendments provided that the provincial list which is to be used in the province for their own election is the only list Which will form the basis for a federal election?


Hugh Guthrie: Yes.


Herbert John Mackie: In the province of Alberta at every election they have a separate enumeration. I would understand from what you have stated that if that is the effect of the law, in my province we are not bound to accept any provincial list of any kind as the basis for a federal election.


Hugh Guthrie: If you have a completed provincial list which is not more than two years old it will be the list.


Herbert John Mackie: In Alberta
they prepare a list for every election. According to the law if we have an election within two years of the time of the preparation of that list we take the provincial list as prepared?


Hugh Guthrie: As the basis for the
Dominion list.


Herbert John Mackie: But you
added nothing in your remarks to the effect that your amendment only provides for the use of the provincial lists which are used for the provincial elections. In Alberta the law provides for an enumeration every year. Are you, therefore, going to force us by the federal law to adopt a provincial list which is absolutely discarded by the Provincial Government themselves when they hold an election?


Hugh Guthrie: It may be a list which, under the law of the province of Ontario, is a valid and subsisting provincial list, and not more than two years old

it is a list prepared within two years by that Government.


Herbert John Mackie: Then I withdraw all my opposition, to- the adoption of the provincial lists elsewhere, because what the minister now says makes it absolutely impossible for the Federal Government to be bound by any provincial list in the province of Alberta, whether a Dominion election is held within two years of the other Government or not.
May 17, 1920
m3


Mr. COWAN:: As I understand the matter, under this proposal which has come from this most extraordinary conference, the enumerators are done away with in the "rural districts. Is that correct?


Hugh Guthrie: Where there are provincial lists not more than two- years old.


Walter Davy Cowan: If you adopt this proposal the people in the rural districts are going to be put to a much greater amount of trouble to get on the lists than they would have been subjected to under the original Bill-onuch more trouble. It means that there will be hundreds, yes thousands, of people, especially women, who will not take that trouble. Now that we have enfranchised women we ought to do everything we possibly c.an to make it easy for every woman who has a right to vote to be placed on the voters' Jist. Of course, if you provide that they may come on election day and swear in their vote, that is all right. But I know what the result will be because I was a scrutineer, under the old enumeration system a good- many times, and in my case-and in the case of every other scrutineer-when a person comes to ime whose name is not on the list, we simply say to the deputy returning officer, ''Give them every oath in the calendar"-that is the stereotyped phrase-and the result is that they have to take every oath provided for. Well, there are thousands of these women who, when they find they have to take every oath in the calendar will never go near the polling place. I do not think we should put them under any such disability. For my part I think the Government should have adhered to the original Bill; it was a whole lot better than what this reactionary conference has given us.


John Albert Sexsmith: I object td the amendment because it is absolutely unfair to the people of the rural municipalities. In one province there is the possibility of appointing enumerators to go around from door to door and give the residents the privilege of having their names on the list. In another province that privilege is withheld and you accept as a basis for your Dominion list a provincial list that may be two years old. Then hundreds of people whose names may not be on the provincial list are obliged to watch for a sitting of the court and then go in person, it may be five, ten, fifteen or twenty miles, and make application for the privilege. I consider that is unfair. I know from personal experience what it means to have voters' lists revised, and I would like the minister to state who would be responsible for the revision of the lists in a province where a two years' old provincial list is accepted as a basis in the rural districts?


Hugh Guthrie: I do not think I understand the question.


John Albert Sexsmith: I understand that
where you adopt the provincial list as a basis in rural constituencies you do not appoint enumerators. Then who is responsible to the individual elector or to the candidate, whoever he may be?


Hugh Guthrie: I do not know what you mean by ''responsible."


John Albert Sexsmith: I mean those who are responsible. In one province you appoint enumerators that go around from door to door-


Hugh Guthrie: Where they have not
any provincial lists.


John Albert Sexsmith: -and every man and woman has a right to have their names put on the list by the enumerator who calls at their residence. What I say is that in every province where you adopt provincial lists that may be two years old the names of hundreds of people will be absent from the list. I know that to be a fact; I never saw it otherwise. Then you say to these people who may be entirely ignorant of the whole condition of affairs and may know nothing of the requirements of the law, "If you want your name on that list, you must go to the city, town or village (as the case may be) and have your name put on the list, and if you neglect to do so, you will have no vote."


Hugh Guthrie: Oh, no.


John Albert Sexsmith: Excuse me. There is another provision that you may go and swear your vote in on election day provided you bring with you two neighbours who know the facts and who are also required to swear with you. That is to say, three parties are required to appear and take an affidavit before that particular elector can vote. I think the machinery is altogether too complicated. Furthermore, there is this condition in my riding: When you talk about adopting a municipal list there are hundreds and hundreds of people on that list who reside all over Canada and in the cities of the United States, such as Chicago, Detroit, Buffalo, and New York. Who is going to take the responsibility of permitting those names to remain on or having them struck off the municipal list?
I am certain I would not care to take the responsibility, and yet there are hundreds

of such people on the list; they own property and are assessed, and their names are on the municipal list, and at every municipal election they have a right to come and vote.


Hugh Guthrie: Putting ' the oath to
them is the only safeguard for which the Bill provides.


Mr. CLEMENTS:: I am quite sure that my hon. friends opposite, as well as a great many hon. members on this side, do not for one moment realize the conditions which exist in the province of British Columbia. Without enumeration in that province, I venture to say that in the rural districts at least one-third of the electors would lose theii votes. We have no municipalities in the rural parts of British Columbia; they are practically all unorganized districts except in the villages. I want to say to the minister, and to this committee, that it would be most unfair to leave British Columbia in that position. I therefore strenuously oppose any amendment seeking to do away with the enumeration system as far as that province is concerned.


Mr. LEVI THOMSON:: I am not sure
that I understand exactly what this proposition means, but so far as I can gather its purport it is this: That if in rural districts there are lists less than two years old there shall be no enumeration or registration. That would mean, if the lists were less than two years old, every man and woman on it would have to swear in order to be entitled to vote. I think the Minister of Immigration and Colonization knows what such a system as that would amount to as far as the province of Saskatchewan is concerned, and I can hardly imagine that he was at the conference referred to at which this amendment was adopted.


James Alexander Calder: That has been our system in Saskatchewan for several years past.


Levi Thomson: But we have had
(enumeration; now you propose to do away with that. I think I know what the result will be in the districts that I am acquainted with in the West. At one time the Saskatchewan Government ordered the list to be prepared every year. I presume my hon. friend (Mr. Calder) will remember that, too. That was done for two years in succession, and I recall that in my town I was acting for the Liberals and trying to revise the lists while a friend was acting for the Conservatives, and after we got through *twenty-five per cent -of the names were struck off the list and perhaps a little more

than twenty-five per cent added. I am satisfied, as regards several small towns in the West, that if you adopt the plan suggested by this amendment twenty-five per cent of the voters, in order to have their names placed on the list, will have to go and swear to the facts, with two persons to identify them. That means where you have one hundred voters to be added in a polling place, three hundred people will have to be on hand to swear to the correctness of the applications, and as my hon. friend from Regina (Mr. Cowan) says the applicants are liable to have to swear to every oath on the list. I do not think the thing is practicable at all, and I cannot understand how my hon. friend (Mr. Calder) came to agree to it when he knows the conditions in the province of Saskatchewan so well.


James Alexander Calder: I was not"very far away when the committee was sitting, and at the time I thought the proposition was a very reasonable one. I am not just so certain of my view at this moment as a result of the discussion that has taken place. I wish to very briefly correct an impression that exists among some of the members on this side. When an enumeration takes place in the province of Saskatchewan it is not provided that the enumerator shall call at every house-that should be clearly understood. If the law provided that an enumerator should call at every house the expense would be enormous-in fact practically prohibitive. As a consequence of that our law has simply provided that the enumerator may, if he chooses, sit down in his own house and make out as good a list as he can from all the material that is available to him. There was a time, some eight or ten years ago, when we required the enumerator to make a house-to-house canvass, but that system was so expensive that we abolished it and adopted the other system under which the enumerator could take the municipal lists or any other material he found at hand and make out the very best list that he could. In addition to that, under the old federal law, as well as under our provincial law, there was always a provision that the voter whose name was not on the list could come forward on election day and swear in his vote. I must say after a great many years' experience with the working out of that law in Western Canada that while occasionally there may have been some slip, as a rule the law has been accepted by our people as workable and

fair, and so far as I am aware no serious criticism of it has come from any section of the community.
The real question that faces the committee and which we discussed the other day at our conference is whether or not it is possible to provide some means whereby the enormous cost of preparing lists under a system of enumeration can be avoided. Some take the view that it is better to put enumerators at work in order to get as complete a list as possible immediately prior to the election. Personally I am inclined to the other view; I think that if we can devise machinery which will enable us, looking at it from the federal standpoint, to prepare lists that are reasonably fair, then we should avoid the unnecessary expense of having the lists prepared by enumerators. In Saskatchewan and Alberta, if there have been provincial elections and lists have been prepared which are not more than two years old, we will accept those lists, not as final, but'merely as a basis for revision if they are available. In our urban communities there is machinery in the law for the revision of these lists immediately prior to the holding of a federal election. There is no reason why under this proposal every person who is qualified to vote in any of our cities or towns with a population of over one thousand should not have his name put on the list after the writs are issued. If, on the other hand, these provincial lists which are not more than two years old are loaded with the names of persons who are not qualified to vote when the federal election comes round, there is no reason why the lists should not be cleaned up in 'that regard as well. That position should be reasonably satisfactory to every one; there will be machinery for the obtaining of an up-to-date list immediately prior to the holding o*f a federal election. Now, as to the rural end of it, those lists prepared within the two year period would be used simply for what they are worth. They are there as a matter of record. Tt does not follow that any person whose name is on that list is entitled to vote or that any person whose name is not on the list is not entitled to vote. The list is merely to be used <as a convenience. It will not be revised in the sense that the city lists are to be revised; it will simply be handed to the deputy returning officer to be taken for what it is worth. Personally I have no objection to that provision so far as Saskatchewan is concerned so long as I know reasonable machinery is pro-166
vided which will enable any (man who is entitled to do so to oome forward on election day and put in his vote. That is all that we attempted to provide. Under the suggested- amendment notw before us provision is made whereby a rural voter whose name is not on the lilst -may apply, in the first place, to a judge and have his name added; or on election day he may have his -name added by having his qualification vouched for by two fellow-electors. I say frankly that I can quite understand how iit is that members from the East who are not fa-miliar with this- sort of law desire to have its provisions safeguarded. In the West we have had a law which enabled the man himself to -come forward on election day -and swear in his vote, -and we have never had any trouble with it. In Eastern Canada there are a good many people who are doubtful of the results of -a law of that hind land desire to throw -around at certain safeguards. Well, if the proposal made lis objectionable and some other safeguard -can be found that will be regarded as reasonable, then I think that the 'committee should endeavour to find that other safeguard.
The problem before the committee has two aspects. In the first place there are those who maintain that regardless of expense we should put an army of officials in the field immediately prior to an election for the purpose of getting the lists and, in the second place, there are those who. hold the view -that if it is possible to- do so-and it Would mean a saving of a 'million ,cxr a million and -a half dollars-we should endeavour to devise machinery whereby we could avoiid that expense. Personally I am -strongly inclined to the latter viewpoint. My good friend from East Edmonton (Mr. H. A. Mackie) speaks of (the enumerator. I know what the enumerator system is and I (think I may fairly say that -after observing the operation of 'that law as a member of the Provincial Government for fifteen years and watching las well the federal elections held out there, the appointment of enumerators -and the actions of enumerators do more harm to the Government that appoints them than they do to the other side. 'That is my experience; if I wanted to run an -election and had the ehotoe of appointing enumerators or letting the other fellow do- it, I would rather let the other fellow do it.


An hon. MEMBER:: You are quite right.


James Alexander Calder: Because there is always a great deal olf -criticism -against that method



of 'building up lists. My own view is that if it is at all (possible to avoid that system we should do so*, especially if a good deal o!f money can be saved.


Herbert John Mackie: May I ask the Minister of Immigration a question? He hats made -a statement which is at variance with the statement made by the Acting Solicitor General, and that is the whole point of my remarks this afternoon. My objection is that we should take in Alberta as the basis of a federal election list :a list prepared by the enumerators, because I recognize the very thing 'that the minister recognizes-'that enumerators are not what they should be. But I isay that you should not force the provlinoial list upon us as the basis of .a federal election list; that is my whole objection. Now, I want to make sure about this. I asked the Acting Solicn

tor General: Is it not .a fact (that you said that the only list we are going to use as the basis of a federal election lis the provincial list which is going to be used as the list for provincial elections, and his answer is, yes. Well then, I say I have no Objection, -because in Alberta we have no such provincial lists. Every time there is an election, a new enumeration is made; but according to the amendment before the House, it is possible that the list prepared by the Provincial Government, which list is not one that they use themselves as a basis for the next election, will be the list which the Federal Government, if they hold an election within the period of two years of the making of this list, will be obliged to adopt, and you are forcing us to adopt a list made up by a class of men to whom you take exception. Iff you force us to accept a list made up by a class of men to whom you take exception, why do you object to our asking that you accept a list prepared in a similar manner? Who is right, the Minister of Immigration and'Colonization (Mr. Calder), or the Acting Solicitor General (Mr. Guthrie)?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: After having
listened to what the Minister of Immigration and Colonization has said, it must he apparent to hem. members that those who were together when these suggestions were being discussed have, in regard to this whole matter, a point of view which it may be difficult for other hon. members to have who have not before them the exact amendments that are proposed. It is quite clear to those of us on both sides who discussed this matter that there are distinct merits in the suggestions which are to be moved,

if the committee so agrees, as amendments to the Bill as it stands, and I think the discussion, if we have regard to what has been said by different hon. members, discloses that many of the difficulties that are feared in what has been proposed, arise from the members not having before them the exact amendments as suggested. I know we are all anxious to get this legislation through as quickly as possible, and perhaps the quickest course to adopt would be for the minister to state to the committee the amendments he has in mind so that we shall have all the amendments before us and shall then be in a position to accept or reject them speedily. That would save a great deal of debate, and I am sure, if hon. members have an opportunity to consider these amendments from no point of view other than what is best for the country, what will give most confidence in an Election Act and what will avoid most extravagance and lessen the possibility of waste of public money, they will feel that what the Acting Solicitor General is about to suggest is most in accord with the public interest.


Thomas Mitchell March Tweedie: The argument on the
Opposition side of the House is that to adopt provincial lists as a basis for a federal list would mean a saving of a great deal of money to this country, hut I have not yet heard any hon. member point out how the saving would come about. For instance, each province has power to pass a Franchise Act regardless of the franchise qualifications in any other province. Let us assume for the purpose of argument that every province in the Dominion passes different qualifications, and that the Dominion passes a Franchise Act in which the qualifications are different from those of any one of the nine provinces. What would be the result? The result would be that persons who are charged with the preparation of the lists must satisfy themselves as regards every name which goes upon the federal list; and as regards the provincial list forming a basis for the preparation of the federal list, it cannot possibly be any better basis than a list compiled from a city directory or a telephone directory or a municipal list or any other lists of names of people living in the community in which the voters' list is being prepared. Let us assume that the Federal Act provides a residence qualification of twelve months in the district, and that the Provincial Act provides a residence qualification of six months in the district, and that in all other respects the franchise qualifications

agree. What does that mean? It means that we have, placed in the hands of the federal officers a list under which the qualification of residence is six months. Therefore, the federal officers must satisfy themselves as regards every man whose name is on the list. If we were at a Stage where the qualifications for the exercise of the franchise were uniform in the various provinces and in the Dominion as a whole, there might be no question as to adopting the provincial lists as the basis of our lists or as the real list of those who are entitled to exercise the Franchise in a Dominion election. But where the respective qualifications vary, it is absolutely necessary that the qualifications of every man whose name is on any list should be investigated to ascertain whether they conform with the requirements of the Federal Act under which he wishes to exercise the franchise. As a matter of practical economy, I cannot see where one dollar will be saved if justice is to be done in connection with the federal franchise.
If the Federal Franchise Act says So and So may vote and any province varies from that, in that province every name that goes on the federal list must be examined to see whether or not the man has, not the qualifications of the Provincial Act, but the qualifications of the Federal Act finder which he wishes to exercise the franchise. I should like to hear some hon. member explain where the real economy in this comes in. I am inclined to agree with my hon. .friend (Mr. H. A. Mackie) that what is at stake is really who is going to exercise the authority of preparing the list of voters to be used throughout the Dominion of Canada.
As regards the revision clause, I think 1 pointed out before that where any class of work is being done on behalf of the Federal Government or the Provincial Government, the officers who are performing that work are the servants of the Federal Government or the Provincial Government respectively. The Government would be ill advised to accept officers of another Government to perform duties in connection with its own Act. You must have the utmost harmony, and you can get that only when you appoint men who are subject to your jurisdiction and instruction. It is an anomaly for us to say that we shall have a Federal Franchise Act prepared for ourselves, and at the same time place the doing of that work in the hands of some persons who are not in any way responsible to this Government.
As regards the conduct of enumerators in Alberta, I must disagree with the Minister of Immigration and Colonization (Mr. Calder) who says that the lists used in the last election would be the basis of the federal lists. My understanding of the provincial enumeration list is that as soon as an election is held, the list becomes a nullity; it automatically dies under our Statute, because it is used only for the purpose of the particular election for which it was prepared. If we were to hold another election in Alberta three months later, we would still be required to prepare a new list by the method of enumeration, the old list being dead. I have always found that the enumeration method has worked out well in Alberta. There is no doubt that mistakes occur and perhaps once in a while you might find an enumerator who did not do his duty properly; but the practice has been that the enumerator goes from house to house in order to ascertain who are entitled to vote in the city or in the country; he can get that definite information only by going from house to house and office to office to ascertain that he gets the names of all those who are entitled to be on the lists.


James Alexander Calder: The Bill does not provide for enumeration in a city like Calgary.
As to the other point raised, the question of economy, at this very time the Manitoba Government is preparing lists for an election to be held in June or July. In the city of Winnipeg they have personal registration. Every elector must come forward and have his name put on the list. I suppose that will take probably three or four or five weeks. After that personal registration takes place, they must go through a form of revision, to strike off and put on. Let us assume they have completed their list and held a provincial election, and that we hold a federal election six months from now. Does the hon. gentleman mean to say that if we took that list which was completed only six months before, and merely revised it for the purpose of our federal election, that there would not be a large saving of money and a great saving of trouble and'expense on the part of the people? Notwithstanding the existence of that list, which so far as I am aware is based on exactly the same requirements as our list, as to residence, naturalization, and everything of that character, does he suggest that notwithstanding the expense to which the province of Manitoba has been put in the preparation of that list, we

should go to the trouble and expense of duplicating all that work, simply because the list was not prepared by the Federal Government? It seems to me that if we provide the necessary machinery to make certain that that list is not prepared from the ground up, but merely revised for the purpose of our election, we are bound to save a great deal of money and put our people to far less trouble and expense than they would otherwise be put to.


Thomas Mitchell March Tweedie: That is exactly the suggestion I intended to make. My point was that if the qualifications for voters throughout the various provinces were uniform with the federal requirements, that system could be carried out. But we have no control over the franchise of the provinces; they can make their own qualifications, and they may all be different at the present time, or, after we pass our Act, they might pass an Act which would be entirely repugnant to ours. My point is that where there is any variation between the provincial and the federal qualifications you cannot adopt the provincial lists, because you must investigate the qualifications of every voter on that list. The province may require a residence of six months in the province, two months in the constituency, and a month in the polling division, and the Federal Act, twelve months in the province, six months in the constituency, and two months in the polling subdivision. IThose are three distinct points. They exist at the present time in various provinces. What does that mean? Every one of those names must be investigated to see whether or not the voter has the qualifications which are required by the Federal Franchise Act, and they are not entitled to be put on. the federal list until that information has been gathered. It means that you could use the provincial list simply as a sort of index or directory, as a list of the names of people who might possibly have the qualifications. But it is the duty of the federal officers to go out and ascertain whether they have the qualifications required by the federal law, because they were placed on the provincial list under different qualifications.


James Hamilton Ross: Maybe I have been the unhappy cause of this discussion. JE did not intend to be. In the case mentioned by my hon. friend (Mr. Tweedie), the protection would be the swearing-in of the voter at the polls.


Thomas Mitchell March Tweedie: Does my hon. friend mean to suggest that every man who goes

to vote should have to take the oath?- You would not get the votes polled in a week in that case.


James Hamilton Ross: I am not contending that. The local officers would know whether they had the qualifications. That is not the point I rose to speak on. I have the amendment before me, suggested by the Acting Solicitor General, to carry out the views of the conference held on the 13th of May, and I think they are all an absolute improvement on the Act. I did not move any amendment at all, but simply threw out in good faith a suggestion to the committee. If the committee does not see fit to accept it, well and good.


Richard Coe Henders: I think we are pretty close to an agreement except on the one point as to the provision to be made for the rural votes. I am not at all satisfied with the amendment as it stands for taking care of the rural voters. I am of the opinion that it would be possible to provide that in the rural districts, just as in the city districts, there shall be opportunity for revision some days before polling day. I think if that could be done, we ought to be able to reach an agreement.


Hugh Guthrie: I want to make it clear that I have not moved an amendment. I have made a suggestion, and the suggestion has certainly come from the conference which was held on Thursday last. I think it might not be out of the way if I followed the suggestion of the leader of the Opposition and let the committee know the exact language of what I suggest. I handed a copy of the document which I have in my hand to the chairman-of the committee, but I have not made any motion by way of amending section 32. The ideas of the conference of Thursday last, as reduced to writing by me, are about as follows. I may not have carried out all the views of those present, but I have tried to. There are one or two minor amendments to section 32 before we come to the schedules. I was going to propose that schedule 1, which is apparently a somewhat clumsy enactment as drawn in the Bill, be struck out and the following be substituted therefor:
Rule (1). Immediately after the receipt of the writ the returning officer shall appoint, by writing, in Form E one person only to be registrar of voters in each city, town or incorporated village which is wholly or partially contained in the electoral district for which the election is pending and which has a population of over 1,000 or less than 4,000" persons, and one for each additional 4,000 persons, who shall, before acting as such, take the oath in Form F;

and the registrars so appointed shall be assigned by the returning officer to such parts or such number of polls as he may deem right and proper.
That is important only in regard to the number of registrars which we will have in urban districts. The next amendment of any consequence would be to schedule B, page 22, which is the schedule providing for the lists in rural polling divisions. I propose to strike out Rule 1 as printed, and insert instead the following:
Rule (1) No rural registrar shall be appointed in any electoral district in any province where provincial voters' lists are available for the purposes of a Dominion election under the provisions of subsection one of section thirty-two of this Act. In such cases provincial voters' lists shall be adopted as final and complete for rural polling divisions; subject, however, to the right of any person to apply to have his name added to the voters' list as provided by section sixty-three of this Act; and subject also to the right of any person resident in a rural polling division to apply in person to the revising officer of any urban polling division in the same electoral district, or if there be no urban polling division in such electoral district, to the nearest revising officer in another electoral district, to have his name added to the voters' list for such rural polling division; Such application may be made at any time during the sittings of such revising officer as provided by rule 13 of schedule A of the said section 32 ; and the revising officer to whom such application shall be so made, if satisfied that the applicant is a person qualified as an elector to vote at the election then pending within such rural polling division, may by writing under his hand addressed to the returning officer of the proper electoral district, order that the name of such person be added to the voters' list for the proper rural polling division. The revising officer shall thereafter, and not later than the twelfth day before polling day, deliver or send by registered mail to each returning officer and to each candidate in each of the electoral districts affected thereby, a list of all persons added to the voters' lists giving the names, residences and additions of such persons and designating the rural polling divisions in which such names have been so added to the voters' lists. The returning officer shall thereupon and in due time before polling day notify the deputy returning officers in each rural polling division affected of the names, residences and additions of the persons so added to the voters' lists by the revising officer. For the purposes of this rule the method of procedure and the powers and authority of the revising officer shall be similar to those set forth in Rules 14 and 15 of Schedule A to the said section thirty-two.
That would be rule (1). Then the present rule (1) I would merely amend in the first few lines as follows;-
If under the laws of any province no provincial voters' lists exist which are available for the purposes of a Dominion election under the provisions of subsection (1) of section 32 of this Act, the returning officer shall, immediately after the receipt of the writ, appoint by writing in Form E one person only to be registrar of voters for each polling division. Whenever a competent person can be secured-
And add the words:
-who is a resident within the limits of the polling division, such person shall be appointed, and only in case of necessity shall a registrar be selected from an outside polling division.
Then I would also suggest that another rule be added to Rule B to be known as 4 A, or to be renumbered after the clause is passed, in the following words:
Any person claiming to be an elector who is dissatisfied with any decision of a registrar under the last preceding rule may apply to the revising officer of any urban polling division in the electoral district wherein such person resides in the same manner as provided under Rule (1) of this Schedule and such revising officer may hear and determine such application, and may order, notify and report upon the same in the same manner and to the same end as provided under the said Rule (1).
Then I would add another rule as No. 4-B:
Any person who has applied either under Rule (1) or Rule (4) of this schedule to a revising officer to have his name added to the voters' list and whose application has been refused by such revising officer shall not thereafter be entitled to apply to have his name added to the voters' list under the provisions of section sixty-three of this Act. If any person, after such refusal by a revising officer, as aforesaid, shall require or request any deputy returning officer to add such person's name to the voters' list under the provisions of section sixty-three of this Act, such person shall be guilty of an offense under this Act and shall be punishable therefor as provided by section eighty-five of this Act.
Then I make provision for the amendment of subsection (1) of section 32 by changing the term "one year" into "two years" in regard to provincial voters' lists. And it would be necessary to make some amendments to section 33 by adding at the end of subsection (2) the following in regard to voters' lists, that is, where an election has taken place and the lists have been returned to the Chief Electoral Officer and a new election is called:
And the same-
Meaning the voters' lists.
-shall thereafter he completed, revised and distributed as provided by Schedules A and B respectively to section 32 of this Act.
Then I would suggest that subsection 3 and 4 be struck out.
It would be necessary also to bring section 63 into conformity with the provisions which I have just read. Therefore, if my suggestions were met, I would propose to amend section 63, subsection (I) as follows :
At polling stations in rural polling divisions the deputy returning officer shall, while the poi] is open, if required by any person whose

name is not on the voters' list and who is vouched for by two electors who are resident in such polling division, administer to such person oath number (1) in form "Z" No. 1 of schedule 1 to this Act and to each of such other two persons an oath in form "Z" No. 2 of schedule 1 to this Act, and such oath having been taken by the applicant person and by such two other persons, the deputy returning officer shall at once cause such applicant person's name to be added to the voters' list, with the word "sworn" written thereafter, and subject to the next following subsection of this Act, such applicant person may thereupon vote.
I would add to the next following subsection, which is subsection (2) by inserting in line 30 after the word "make" the following words:
including the names of the two persons who vouched for the applicant person.
I have also prepared a form of oath to be taken by the two persons who act as sureties or vouchers for the persons whose names are so added, which is practically a repetition of the oath of the elector, that they know the elector, and they know and state his qualifications to vote at the election. That, I think, would make more certain that this privilege of voting under section 63 would not be abused.
Then, as I intimated a few moments ago, I would suggest that section 100 be amended by striking out the words "or other persons" in the first line. That would confine the section in its application to railway men, sailors and commercial travellers.
These are the amendments which were in my mind, suggested as a result of the conference which we held on Wednesday. I have given them now to the committee in order that hon. members may fully understand the scope of them; but it must be borne in mind that I have not yet moved them as amendments.


Mr. STEELE:: One or two features of this Franchise Act appealed, I think, to almost every member when it was introduced. One was that we were to have valid up-to-date lists, a matter in which the rural constituencies have suffered for many years as compared with the urban constituencies. Representing a rural constituency as I do, I think it is a most important feature of the Bill that rural lists should he up-to-date-even more important,
I think, than that the urban lists should be up-to-date.
Another feature which commended itself to me was the simplicity of the machinery prescribed for the preparation of the lists. Perhaps it is expensive. Those of us who have had to do with the preparation and

revision of these lists in years past know that the old method in Ontario was exceedingly expensive,-especially to the candidates. We cannot have an accurate up-to-date list without expense. It is a question whether the Government should bear the expense or whether the individual candidates themselves should bear it. After the discussion to-day, and especially after the reading of the Acting Solicitor General's proposed amendments, I have lost my vision of up-to-date lists for the rural constituencies and a simple method of preparing those lists. Franchise Acts in the past have been very confusing to the average man. But I do not think I have ever heard or read of any provisions which were proposed for a franchise Bill which would be more confusing to an ordinary elector than the proposals now laid before the nouse by the Acting Solicitor General, and if these are the best fruits of a conference, then I would say do away with conferences and leave the matter in the hands of this committee, which could decide perhaps more promptly and with better results what the provisions of the Act should be. Many members probably do not appreciate what it would mean to adopt this method of preparing the lists in rural constituencies. Three or four years ago I made an estimate of the changes which would be made in my own constituency, which is a very small and stable one ; there not being many people coming and going. I found about 450 names of new voters on one list as compared with the previous list. That probably is about the average number of changes that take place each year. If we were using a list two years old containing the names of the old electorate and when the women were not included there would probably be a thousand changes. With the women added we would probably have 2,000 new voters. What does it mean when we enter an election campaign to have 2,000 people who are entitled to vote but whose names are not on the list? This amendment provides for people going to some revising officer somewhere and having their names added. If they do not do that they can go up on election day and swear in their votes. Just imagine what that would mean in my small constituency. I venture to say that in North Perth there would be 'from 4,000 to 6,000 voters whose names would not be on a two-year-old list when the election campaign came on. It seems to me that a statement of this kind is sufficient to let the House see that the system is practically unworkable. The result will be that if that

system is followed there will be hundreds of men and women who will be deprived of the right of voting or who will have to go to the polls on election day and swear in their votes. The polling booths will be so congested from morning till night that there will be ill feeling, disturbance and uncertainty at the polls. I sincerely trust that the Acting Solicitor General will return to the original clause, even if it is necessary to make some amendment to meet the question of expense. I think that would be very desirable. I do not see why we should not have in any rural constituency the same system which is adopted in an urban constituency. Have a revising officer in each municipality, and if there are names on the list which should not be there the necessary changes can be made by the revising officer. That would simplify it very much. Voters would know exactly where they had to go and what they had to do, while under the proposed amendment the confusion will be very great because so many people will desire to have their names put on the list.


Levi Thomson: I understand that a voter in a rural district who is not on the revised list would have the right to vote if the revising officer in some town should add his name. If the revising officer should refuse, would he still have the right to have his name put oni the list by a judge?


Hugh Guthrie: If he does he will commit an offence which under the Act is punishable. The presumption is that the judge will inquire into the matter and decide whether he has the right to vote or not.


Levi Thomson: Then the revising officer is the final court of appeal?


Hugh Guthrie: Yes.


Levi Thomson: Why should there be an appeal in the urban district and not in the rural?


Hugh Guthrie: It is the same.


Levi Thomson: You have an appeal to the judge in the urban district.


Hugh Guthrie: A man in the rural district, under the amendment, has an appeal to the same judge.


Levi Thomson: That is what I
was asking you. I understood he would not have.


Hugh Guthrie: Yes, and the decision of the judge will be final in both instances. But if a man in a rural district should attempt to swear himself in he will be liable under the Act.


Levi Thomson: The hon. gentleman misunderstood my question. I understand the applicant has an appeal to a judge and that if the judge decides that he is not entitled to vote, he must not swear his name in?	.


Hugh Guthrie: That is right.


Levi Thomson: With regard to
swearing on the name, I concur in what the hon. the Minister of Immigration and Colonization (Mr. Calder) says, that where the practice has been tried it has been found thoroughly satisfactory. I think that is the agreement of hon. members on both sides of the House who. know anything about it. I think it is the best and safest plan you could possibly adopt, and to do away with it is a most dangerous thing.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: In the application of the law is a voter's oath alone taken as sufficient?


Levi Thomson: Yes.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: Has that been quite satisfactory without having the oaths of two resident electors?


Levi Thomson: I am quite willing to accept that because apparently hon. gentlemen who do not know how the system is actually working in the province of Saskatchewan are frightened. It has been found satisfactory there. But let us have the addition which the Acting Solicitor General has suggested because it may be that people in other provinces, being unfamiliar with the system, are suspicious of it. But do not shut out the right of a man to record his vote by that method in a rural district because if you do you are going to shut out a great many votes.


Mr. HAY:: I am not sure that the amendment is going to be workable in country districts. Where a Dominion election was held within two years after the provincial list had been revised, the electors would have no means of placing their names on the list except by making application to a judge or enumerator in a town where there were
2,000	inhabitants. In a large country constituency, such as I represent, I fancy this would be practically impossible. Where the vote is changed so quickly and where a great many new voters are coming in I fancy the Act would be entirely unworkable. It we had 300 names on the list in a polling subdivision and it should be necessary to swear in fifty, sixty or a hundred more, I cannot see how it could be done unless we

created double polls in each polling subdivision. It would be practically impossible to get the vote polled in the time allowed for the polling to take place. As far as I can see a thorough revision of the lists in the country constituencies is necessary previous to an election, especially where those lists are two years old. I cannot see any other procedure to follow that would give justice to the people living in the country; and in my opinion it would be a mistake to adopt any amendment that would tend to disfranchise great numbers of these electors. Probably hon. members who represent constituencies in the East have no idea of the size of our western constituencies. For example, my constituency is something like three hundred miles long by one hundred and fifty miles wide, and it would be out of the question for many persons to travel such a great distance to register in any town or village. Yet their only means of getting their names on the list would be on polling day, and they would be compelled to bring two of their neighbours a very great distance to give evidence that they were properly qualified. Therefore I think some other method should 'be adopted whereby registration can take place in our rural constituencies. I would like the committee to carefully consider these matters because they affect the western constituencies in a very important manner.
Progress reported.
At six o'clock the House took recess.
After Recess.
The House resumed at Eight o'clock.



MINISTER PLENIPOTENTIARY OF CANADA AT WASHINGTON.

[Stage Direction]
(On motion of Right Hon. Sir Robert Borden (Prime Minister) for Committee of 'Supply:
William Stevens Fielding: communications with the United States. It is important in its hearing on our relations with the Mother Country. It is important in every respedt; it comes nearer to being a constitutional change than any of the various matters which have recently been brought to the attention of the House. For all these -reasons, on an important matter, on a matter which is not urgent nor pressing, on -a matter which affords every opportunity for preliminary consideration and reflection, it would be -a wise policy for the Government to halt in their proceedings, and before they go further, to bring the whole matter fully before the Parliament of Canada, in order that We may be able to exercise sound judgment on the -subject. For that reason, without dwelling on the matter further, -and with the full understanding -that at a Later stage on the main question, if necessary, I shall be permitted to discuss this matter further, confining myself at present entirely to the question of Parliamentary procedure, I move:
That all the words after the word "that", to the end of the question, be left out and the following- words be inserted instead thereof:
"This House desires to record its opinion that before any arrangement respecting the permanent representation of Canada at Washington is consummated, the House should be fully informed concerning the negotiations between the Canadian, Imperial and United States Governments, and all correspondence and Orders in Council on the subject should be submitted to the House."


Hon. N. W. ROWELL:: (President of the Council):	I am sure hon. members have
listened with interest to the remarks of my hon. friend (Mr. Fielding) who has moved this amendment. I may congratulate my hon. friend on one point of his remarks at least, that is that, after persistently denying for a year and a half or two years in this House and in the press that Canada's status had been modified in any degree *whatever, he to-night acknowledges the fact that there is some modification and improvement in our status, as shown by the step that has been taken.
My hon. friend's criticism of the action of the Government appears to be based on three grounds: First, that there is no occasion for such an appointment, that no conditions exist which call for it; second, that there is no- public opinion in the country behind such an appointment; and third, that before any arrangement is consummated, all the facts should be submitted to the House.
Dealing briefly with these points in the order in which they are raised by my hon.

friend, let me say with reference to the first, that my hon. friend and the other members of the House have only to recall conditions existing between two great countries having a boundary line 4,000 miles in extent, and in which for many years the chief work of the British Ambassador at Washington related to Canadian affairs, to realize that Canada has important and vital interests at Washington which require the attention of a representative of Canada. My hon. friend has conceded that during the period of the war Canada required representation at Washington and that we were represented by business men who did a fine piece of' work for Canada. I am sure my hon. friend realizes the fact that the largest part of the external trade of the Dominion of Canada is with the great -nation to the south. Does he realize that the great nation to the south has a larger trade with Canada than with all the republics of -Central or South America? We are one of the very largest customers of the United States, and the United States is the country with which we in Canada have the largest trade. Not only the question of trade, but other questions do and must inevitably arise between two nations geographically so closely and intimately related a-s the peoples of our two countries and these call for the attention of a Canadian minister.
What are the objects of having a representative at the capitol of another state; to safeguard and protect the interests of the people of the country concerned. Does any hon. member doubt that a Canadian, possessing the intimate knowledge which a Canadian should of Canadian affairs and trade conditions, is better qualified, to look after Canadian interests than a man who has not that knowledge or experience? Surely no hon. member will question that fact? That being so, I do not think hon. members will question that it is in the interests of Canada that we should have in the capital of the neighbouring nation a Canadian to look after orjr rights and interests. I do not wish to mention -questions that are coming up. Hon. members have only to recall questions that arise from week to week and from month to month which are provoking discussions in the press of the United States and in the press of Canada, to realize how important it is that we should be in a position to communicate directly with the American Government, to represent the views of the people of Canada to that Government through our representative -at Washington in order that the rights and interests

of the people of this country may be properly guarded and protected in the premises. In saying this, I have nothing but words of appreciation for the conduct of the different British ambassadors at Washington. They have sought to place themselves in touch with Canadian conditions; they have put forth every effort to represent fully and adequately our views so far as it has been possible for them to do so. In what I have said about the importance of Canadian representation, I do not wish that any implication should arise that the British ambassadors who have been present at Washington have not put forth *every effort to look after Canadian interests there.
My hon. friend's second contention was that there is no public opinion behind this change. The difficulty with my hon. friend is that he suffers from such an incurable obscurantism on all matters concerning Canada's status, that he is unwilling to see the evidence of public opinion in this country on this matter. 1 could turn to the press of Canada, and point out that the Canadian newspapers from the Atlantic to the Pacific, with the possible exception of the journal so ably edited by my hon. friend, have been *discussing this matter for the past year and a half. My hon. friend says that there is no public opinion behind this change. Let me draw attention to one of the leading newspapers of Western Canada about which I have knowledge because the matter has been drawn to my attention, and I am not sure that what I say of this one paper is not equally true of other newspapers in Western Canada. Every one recognizes the influence of the Winnipeg Free Press as an exponent of public opinion in Western Canada, whether one agrees or disagrees with it. From the time this question was raised that paper has been explaining and expounding the question, urging that the time had come when such a representative should be appointed, and stating that it was the duty of Canada to see that such a representative was appointed. Let me instance the leading papers of Ontario, the Toronto Globe, the Mail and Empire, the Star. I am not sure about the Telegram.


Mr. CASGRAIN:: Are they your newspapers?


Newton Wesley Rowell: The Toronto Globe, the
Mail and Empire and the Star have all *been strongly advocating the appointment of a Canadian representative. I am not sure but that the same is not equally true of the World, although my attention
has not been called to the position of that particular paper, while it has been called to the position of the other papers. Although I have not gone through the press with a view of getting at the facts I am quite sure if you examine the newspapers of Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific you will find that this question has been discussed for a year and a half at least and that the overwhelming expression of opinion, as voiced through the press, has been strongly in favour of the proposal which the Government has now consunnhated.
Then my hon. friend says: Public opinion has had no opportunity to register itself. In that respect I should just like to draw my hon. friend's attention as to what has actually been placed before the Parliament of Canada. In the first session of last year the Estimates were laid on the table of the House on the 19th of March. An item was included providing the sum of $50,000 for the Canadian War Mission and representation at Washington. That estimate came up for the consideration of the House on the first day of April.


William Stevens Fielding: A suitable day.


Newton Wesley Rowell: My hon. friend says "a suitable day" because he has such an idea of Canada, of her position and her future, that he has not yet been able, since these discussions arose, to take the broad gauge view of Canada's position and her place in the Empire. I appeal to my hon. friends: Have faith in your country, have faith in her people, have faith in their ability to look after their country's interests when the need arises.


Jacques Bureau: Legislate them good.


Newton Wesley Rowell: It would take a good deal of legislation to make my hon. friend good.


Jacques Bureau: Don't use your own yardstick in judging others.


Newton Wesley Rowell: Turning again to the question of public opinion as expressed in this House, this matter came up in this House on the first day of April, and my hon. friend who was then leader of the Opposition (Mr. McKenzie) suggested that the matter should stand over for further consideration. On that occasion my hon. friend the member fc-r Maisonneuve (Mr. Lemieux) asked the question-I was in charge of the estimate-whether it was the intention of the Government to appoint a representative at Washington.


Mr. LEMIEUX:: Be careful there.


Newton Wesley Rowell: I will read my Ron. friend's words.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Question, question.


Newton Wesley Rowell: I do not wonder that my hon. friends are getting a little impatient, because they should know that on this matter the Government is carrying with it, without a shadow of doubt, the judgment of the people of Canada. This matter came up on the first of April, and my hon. friends will find a reference to it on page 1074 of Hansard. In answer to the question that it should stand, I stated:
It is an item that involves an important principle and will stand some discussion.
Then my hon. friend the member for Maisonneuve asked for information on it, although it was agreed that it should stand over. He asked:
Has there been any correspondence exchanged between this Government and the Imperial authorities with regard to representation at Washington?
Then he goes on to say that the question came up while Sir Wilfrid Laurier was in power, and that Sir Wilfrid Laurier had the idea of appointing a representative at Washington, but that the matter had dropped.


Rodolphe Lemieux: A representative at
Washington?


Newton Wesley Rowell: What my hon. friend stated was:
as Commissioner at Washington, having the same status as our Canadian Commissioner at London.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Hear, hear.


Newton Wesley Rowell: Then he goes on to say that the proposal did not eventuate, and he asked what the situation then was. Though it was agreed that the matter should stand over, I stated that the item in the Estimates was to make provision:
For a permanent representative at Washington. The exact form which that representation will take is a matter of consultation between the Prime Minister and the Imperial Government	The intention is to continue the present Canadian War Mission in existence until the arrangements are made for a permanent representative. The moment those arrangements are concluded the War Mission will go out of existence, but we do not consider it expedient that there should be an interregnum between the end of that Mission and the appointment of a permanent representative. That is the object of inserting this item in the Estimates.
My hon. friend then made a suggestion as to who would be a good representative,

and congratulated the Government on the proposal.
That announcement, Mr. Speaker, was passed from one end of Canada to the other through the public press. It also went over to England and was the occasion of certain questions being asked in the British House of Commons. At the request of the then leader of the Opposition, as I have already intimated, it stood over for consideration and discussion, and it was not called up again for five weeks, until the 5th of May. So if any hon. members desired to formulate any views in reference to this matter they were given an abundant opportunity to do so; they were given nearly five weeks in which to consider the matter before the question was again called up. Did hon. members on that occasion protest against the necessity of appointing a representative at Washington? According to my recollection not one member on the other side of the House raised a protest. The matter was before the House all through the spring session, and unless I am mistaken my hon. friend the member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding) said not a word about it from the beginning to the end of the session. Other members on the Opposition side did, but generally speaking, their words were words of congratulation on the action which the Government proposed.
Lest there should be any misunderstanding, I was asked specifically on that occasion what was involved in the appointment. I think it was the hon. member for Brome (Mr. MeMaster) who asked whether the Canadian representative at Washington would have diplomatic standing, and whether he would be entitled to conduct negotiations direct with the American Government, and my answer was that I believed that so far as concerned purely Canadian affairs he would conduct negotiations direct with the American Government, and so far as concerned matters that were not purely Canadian, they would be dealt with in co-operation with the British ambassador. That was the effect of my statement made on that occasion, on the 5th of May, 1919. That is the exact effect of the statement made to the House by the Acting Prime Minister (Sir George Foster) on Monday last. The principle was clearly laid before the House last year, before the Government asked the House to vote the amount in supply. If hon. members did not appreciate its significance, the Government and members on this side of the House are not responsible for that. If hon. mom-

bers did not take advantage of that occasion to express their views on the matter, if they had any criticism to offer, hon. members on this side of the House are not responsible. The Government had every reason to believe that they had not only the people of Canada behind them, but a united parliament in the action they were about to take.
My hon. friend from Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding) has said: But you should not have done this by Order in Council. When my hon. friend says that we should have submitted something further to the House than we have submitted, I confess I am at a loss to understand just what he has in view. We have passed no Order in Council in connection with this matter. Nothing so far has been done by Order in Council in connection with this matter. The Government's legislative section and authority to take action during the year was the estimate voted last session; the Government's legislative sanction and authority for action now will be the item contained in the Estimates this session. The item last session passed the House, was concurred in and formed part of the Bill of Supply which was passed unanimously and the Government had the full sanction and authority of Parliament for continuing the negotiations in order to reach a conclusion on the matter.
I should add this matter came up again a few days later, on May 8. 1919, when my hon. fr.iend for Maison-neuve (Mr. Lemieux), referring to a despatch which appeared in the papers reporting a question asked in the Imperial House of Commons, inquired in reference to the appointment of a Canadian representative at Washington, and then suggested that possibly as that representative would only be a commercial representative or agent, it was not necessary to consult the Imperial Government with reference to the appointment. My reply to his question will be found on page 2202 of Hansard of May 8, 1919, and is as follows:
The Canadian representative at Washington will be very much more than the Canadian agent. His status will be very different from the status of the Canadian representative in Paris or London. Therefore, there is consultation with the Imperial Government with reference to the appointment. I stated the other evening that confidential communications had been held between the Prime Minister of Canada and the Imperial Government in reference to this matter but that these were not yet concluded and that when they were the House would be advised of the whole purport of them.
Could there be any clearer statement made to the House as to the character of
the negotiations that were being carried on? And yet not one member on the Opposition side of the House questioned our proceeding with the negotiations along the line I have indicated, and the spring session of 1919 concluded with not a real word of criticism or of protest. Can my hon. friends, after the matter having been submitted to Parliament as I have mentioned, and after their having failed to offer any real opposition to it or any real criticism of the Government for continuing and concluding the negotiations, with any degree of fairness now seek to criticise the action of the Government in doing what the Government then intimated they were about to do?
The Government continued the negotiations and concluded them. At what date, Mr. Speaker, would my hon. friend say that the Government should have brought this matter again before the House and asked the sanction of Parliament? How could we bring it before Parliament any further than we did until an understanding was arrived at? In confidential negotiations of that kind we could not bring down a partial understanding. The negotiations were necessarily confidential between the British Government and this Government, particularly as they affected representation in another country. It would have been just as reasonable if my hon. friend (Mr. Fielding) had been criticised in 1911 and told:	" You should not have concluded
an agreement at Washington until you first submitted your proposals to the House and had the sanction of Parliament." My hon. friend did what was the reasonable thing to do if the Government of the day was prepared to take the responsibility for it. (He went ahead and concluded the agreement and then submitted it to Parliament, as that agreement had to be submitted for it affected the changes in the tariff. That is exactly what the Government did in this case, but they did more-they brought the matter down a year ago while the negotiations were in the early stages and laid the principle of it before the House, they took a vote of the House in respect to it, and there being no opposition they had the mandate of the House to go on with the negotiations.
The Government have now concluded art understanding embodied in the statement made to the House by the Acting Prime Minister, and the House will be asked to give its legislative sanction to that understanding when it is asked to vote the item in Supply which will come up in due course.

What arrangement could be fairer? How could the Government take the House more fully into its confidence than it has done in a matter of this kind? I submit that my hon. friend's criticism is wholly beside the mark and does not touch this grave and important step in Canadian constitutional development.
One word more, Mr. Speaker, I am sure my hon. friend must realize, if he is a student of constitutional history, that the conduct of foreign affairs is the special prerogative of the Crown; and when I use the word Crown, I am using it in the sense in which it is used under our constitution: the Crown advised by its constitutional advisers. It is the duty of the Government to carry on these negotiations and to reach a conclusion on them, and there is no obligation to consult the House before they reach a conclusion; in fact, the conduct of foreign relations would, I submit, be impossible, if the Government went further than they have done in the present case. They laid the principle before Parliament; they had parliamentary approval of it; they went or. and negotiated an understanding; they have informed Parliament of the nature of that understanding; they have submitted an estimate to the House in order that Supply may be voted to maintain and support the representative thus established.
The Government has followed true constitutional practice and precedent in the course it has taken. My hon. friend's criticism of the Government's course, I submit, is unfortunate in this respect: it may give rise to the impression that there is a real difference of opinion among Canadian people upon this question. I do not believe, Mr. Speaker, that there is any real difference of opinion in Canada upon this question. I believe that the overwhelming mass of our people are in favour of the proposal and look upon the step taken by the Government as one distinctly in the interests of Canada, and, I believe, also in the interests of the British Empire. It means that Canadian affairs at Washington, when the representative is appointed, will be conducted by a iCanadian direct with the American Government. And I can only repeat that I am sure that is a step that our people desire to have taken. We cannot always remain in a dependent position having our affairs looked after and managed by other people.


Ernest Lapointe: Hear, hear.


Newton Wesley Rowell: My hon. friend says,
" Hear hear." I hope he will say " Hear, 
hear " .with equal emphasis when I say,- that we are not going to change our settled allegiance to the King and cut the tie that binds us to the Mother Country in order to obtain the management of our own affairs.


Ernest Lapointe: Hear, hear.


Newton Wesley Rowell: We are going to do two things-manage our own affairs and maintain the unity of the British Empire. We believe that we are entitled to manage our own purely Canadian affairs within the British Ernpire, and that is what this policy implies and involves. In so far as it does involve a constitutional departure-and I agree with my hon. friend that it does involve a constitutional departure-it is the logical and inevitable development of -what has been taking place in this country for the past five, ten, twenty, thirty years; it is the logical and inevitable development of the work of our soldiers overseas, of our status under the Peace Treaty, and of the present position of Canada within the British Empire and in the world.
In the course the Government has taken, the 'Government are carrying out not only the judgment of Parliament but the judgment of the people of Canada having regard to Canada's status and vital interests. For, whatever my hon. friend may say to the contrary, Canada is to-day associated with the Mother Country and the other Dominions in a great League of Nations of equal status under a common sovereign-the strongest and most influential factor for the preservation of the world's peace that exists to-day. And it is of vital moment that good relations should be preserved between the British Empire as a whole and the United States, the other great branch of the Anglo-Saxon race. Good relations between these two countries are not only important so far as they affect Canada and the Mother Country, they are important so far as they affect the future peace of the world. There is no better way to maintain a good understanding than by being able to meet men face to face, to talk over problems in which you are both interested, and to supply full information, for the majority of international, as well as personal, misunderstandings, spring from a lack of knowledge and a lack of appreciation of the [DOT]viewpoint of the other. I believe that a Canadian representative in Washington, meeting and talking with representatives of the American Government and dealing with problems common to both, will make for strengthening the good relations that

now exist between the two countries, will make not only for their maintenance in the future, but also help to remove some of the misunderstandings that from time to time arise between some people in the United States and some people in the Mother Country. The whole effect should he to strengthen and bind together nations having so much in common in their history, in their traditions, in their ideals and in their common love of democratic government and free institutions.


Ernest Lapointe: Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the amendment moved by the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding), namely, that all the papers concerning this change should be brought before Parliament and that the question should be fully discussed before a final decision is taken. My hon. friend the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Rowell) has certainly not given all the details that are necessary to enlighten the House as to the meaning of the change that is being made. We are just as much at sea as ever after the speech delivered by my hon. friend. We were told in the official statement that was given to the House a few days ago that this change is practically no change at all. Here are the words of the statement:
This new arrangement will not denote any departure either on the part of the British Government or of the Canadian Government from the principle of the diplomatic unity of the British Empire.
* Yet, we are told that this appointment to Washington involves a very important change-the President of the Privy Council having used the words "very important departure." The language is certainly ambiguous, as all diplomatic language is, and I think I am within the mark when I say there are not five members of this House who really know the meaning of the change that is being made by this proposal.
My hon. friend says that Parliament was consulted last year when an estimate was voted for a certain amount, and that my hon. friend from Maisonneuve (Mr. Le-mieux) at that time approved of the step. The very few words uttered by my hon. friend from Maisonneuive indicate that he understood, as we all did at the time, that the proposal was to appoint a trade commissioner at Washington. The President of the Privy Council at that time said that it was to continue the work done by the trade commission which had been in Washington during the war, and my hon. friend from Maisonneuve said that it was even more important to have a commissioner in
Washington than in Paris or even in London. Will the President of the Privy Council say that it is only a trade commissioner that is going to be appointed to Washington?


Newton Wesley Rowell: I stated then clearly that it was a great deal more. Ilf my hon. friend will turn it up in Hansard he will see it.


Ernest Lapointe: But my hon. friend will admit that it was understood by the House at that time that the work of the representative was to continue the operations of the trade commission in Washington. Surely the voting of that sum did not mean that Parliament had decided on such an important question as this. As far as I am concerned, I will readily admit any-thirnk that looks like national self-assertion, anything which advances Canada along the road of nationhood, appeals to me. As General Smuts said last year, in a figurative way; "The British Empire ended in July or August, 1914," that is, that all the countries under the British flag axe sister nations, the word "Empire" meaning a dominant state with subordinate states. But we must know exactly where we are going, because the body that is responsible to the Canadian people for any such important step as this is the Canadian Parliament and nof the committee of the Privy Council. If we are to accept the words of the official statement that was made to the House this . may be a very important -change although later on it is said there has been no- constitutional departure. This statement reads:
Accordingly, it has been agreed that His Majesty, on advice of his Canadian ministers, shall appoint a Minister Plenipotentiary who will have charge of Canadian affairs and will at all times be the ordinary channel of communication with the United States Government in matters of purely Canadian concern, acting upon instructions from and reporting direct to the Canadian Government. In the absence of the Ambassador the Canadian minister will take charge of the whole Embassy and of the representation of Imperial as well as Canadian interests. He will be accredited by His Majesty to the President with the necessary powers for the purpose.
There is no better constitutional authority than Professor Keith and here is what I read in his work "Responsible Government in the Dominions," page 1133 volume 3:
It would be a completely different thing to approve direct communications on political matters or the direct negotiation of treaties proper, and it would clearly be in theory a termination of the existing unity of the Empire, and the fundamental alteration of its constitution.


Ernest Lapointe: At page 130. Mr. Curtis, recognizing the natural desire on the part of citizens of the Dominion to have a voice in the control of their own affairs, even foreign affairs, indicates only two methods of arriving at that solution. He says, first you must have either an Imperial Council, or an Imperial Cabinet, composed of ministers of the different Dominions as well as of the Mother Country. The other solution he indicates is an Imperial Parliament-all the apostles of Imperial Federation have advocated the same scheme-and he says it is the only solution for the Dominions, if they want to have a voice in foreign affairs. The only other alternative is independence, and of course he deprecates this mode of arriving at a solution of the question. Now if men, able men, students of constitutional affairs, men who desire a solution of the constitutional relations between the Mother Country and the various parts of the Empire, state that the only way for the Dominions to have a voice in their foreign affairs-if they do not desire independence-is the establishment of an Imperial Parliament which will have the control of all those representations in the foreign country, I say that such a step as the one which has been adopted should have been submitted to Parliament for full discussion before it was entered into. That is specially the case when we have been told for the last two years that immediately after the war an Imperial Conference would be called for the purpose of considering, studying and settling all the constitutional changes which are desirable in the relations between the Mother Country and the various Dominions of the Empire. Why did not the Government wait until this conference had been held before taking a step that may be very important, because when this conference takes place some people may come and say: Here is an accomplished fact; the Dominions have already a voice in their foreign affairs; and that being so they must agree to some Parliament or council or cabinet to which those diplomatic representatives shall be responsible.
Further, Mr. Speaker, it is said that the Canadian representative at Washington will automatically replace the British Ambassa-

dor when he is absent. If that representative is appointed by us, surely we will be responsible for his actions. Will the people of Canada be responsible for all the actions of that representative when he acts in the capacity of the British Ambassador in the absence of the regular ambassador? Another question I wish to ask is this: If the Canadian representative acts as British Ambassador surely the British Parliament or the British Government will have something to say in the selection of that representative, and he fcannot be selected or appointed on the recommendation of the Canadian Government only? I could not believe that the British Government would agree to be represented by, and held responsible for the actions of, a man in the selection of whom they would have no voice whatever. Again I say Parliament should be given all particulars, all details about this appointment: Upon what conditions the British Government have agreed to the appointment of a Canadian representative at Washington? What is the real status of that officer? To what extent will the Canadian people be held responsible for his actions when he acts as British Ambassador? To what extent will the Imperial Government or Parliament have responsibility for the appointment of that officer? Then, and then only, shall we be able to discuss the question, and then only shall the Canadian people be in a position to decide as to the merit or the demerit of the constitutional change effected by this policy.


Robert Laird Borden: It is sometimes said of a policy that it is damned by faint praise. I think it may be said of this proposal to appoint a Minister Plenipotentiary at Washington, that hon. gentlemen opposite have praised it by very faint condemnation.
My hon. friend (Mr. Lapointe) has referred to certain constitutional authorities and has pointed out the grave apprehensions entertained by those authorities if such a course should be pursued. I do not propose at this moment to enter into the question of the future constitutional relations of the Empire. As my hon. friend has said, that subject will he discussed at a great constitutional conference, not called, II assume, this year, but perhaps next year; and I hope at that conference both sides of this House, whatever party may be in power, will be represented. I believe that as foreign relations in the United Kingdom are lifted beyond the petty eontro-156
versy of party politics, so the relations of Canada to our Empire may be lifted beyond the petty controversy of party politics in this country. As I have already said in this House, if I should be Prime Minister of Canada when that conference is called, I should certainly invite hon. gentlemen on the other side to participate with us in the discussions which will take place. I am not going to enter into that question now; I have just this to say: that he would be a bold man who would undertake to set forth the precise lines upon which constitutional changes in the future will be worked out and upon which the constitutional relations of the different nations of the Empire to each other and to the Mother Country will be based in the future. On the other hand, I think he would be a timid man who is not confident that the problem is not insoluble and that those relations will be worked out in such a way as to give to every nation of the Empire its adequate voice and place within the Britannic commonwealth.
I should like to point out to my hon. friend that when1 in days gone by, forty or fifty years ago, the question was raised of handing over to the Canadian people and to the Canadian legislature the control of their public domain, the control of their fiscal policy, the control of all their domestic affairs, the same grave apprehensions were expressed as to the effect which those just and merited concessions would have upon the solidarity of the Empire. My hon. friend need have no apprehensions as to the effect of this proposal. What does it amount to, after all? It amounts to this and only this: that a country like Canada, with eight and a half to nine millions of people, bordering the great republic to the south for four thousand miles and far more intimately associated with that country than with any other country outside the British Empire, should have its representative in the Embassy at Washington which represents the whole Empire. Is there anything startling or novel in that? Is there any reason why it should not be carried out? Does my hon. friend know what the Government did of which he was a supporter? He raises grave constitutional difficulties as to who shall appoint this minister and who shall be responsible for him. Does he know that the Government which was in power before 1911 concluded a treaty with the United States under which three Canadians were -appointed to act with three men appointed by the United States Government on an International Joint Committee to



deal with the matters covered by that treaty? What axe these men but ambassadors, in a .sense-ambassadors charged also, ilt is true, with the duty of settling differences between the two icountries not only by judiiicial determination, but also by report and recommendation? When my hon. friend the then Minister _ of Finance (Mr. Fielding) iwent to Washington in 1911, what was his position, to all intents and purposes? Be was an ambassador sent on behalf of Canada to the United States for the purpose of negotiating a treaty. If that is good constitutional practice for three, four or five months, where do you find any violation of the constitution in appointing a permanent representative to do the same thing and to deal with matters of precisely the same or more varied character?
My hon. friends on the other side seem to be strangely alarmed about this proposal. The hon. member (Mr. Lapointe) says that he is very happy to support any assertion of the dignity and status of the Canadian people, or words to that effect. He does not seem to be very happy in his support of the proposal this evening. I hope that his mind will be reassured after this debate has taken place and that he will come to a more illuminating and happier view of the proposal which has been placed before the country.
The hon. gentleman is strangely alarmed as to the terrible consequences which will ensue to this country if the Canadian minister at Washington in the absence of the British Ambassador should venture to carry on negotiations with the United States Government, and he wants to know to what extent the people of this country will be responsible. They will be responsible to precisely the same extent as if the British Ambassador himself had carried on the negotiations; no more and no less. I should have thought that that answer would have occurred to my hon. friend before he propounded that rather curious question.
Well, let us look a little at some of the observations which the member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding) has made. In the first place, in connection with his demand that all the correspondence and Orders in Council should be laid on the table of the House, I should like to say just this: the correspondence has been conducted on the one hand with the Government of the United Kingdom and on the other hand with the Government of the United States. The correspondence does not tell the whole story, because there have

been many oral interviews in which the subject has been discussed on many occasions during the past three years. I had the correspondence examined very carefully; I myself examined it carefully. I must say to my hon. friends on the other side of the House that in my judgment it cannot be brought down with any advantage. to the public interest,-more than that, without detriment to the public interest. The negotiations with the Mother Country were naturally of an exceedingly confidential character. That is equally true-find I will emphasize this fact-with regard to the negotiations with the Government of the United States. My hon. friends on the other side are well aware, no doubt, that no country has the right to demand that any other country shall receive its minister. Every country gXanlfcs that only in 'response 'bo a request, and it is not obliged to grant any such request. We must accordingly be scrupulously careful to respect their confidences. Therefore, while the consultations wuth the British Government iwere of a highly confidenltaal nature, whether they were {wiriitten or oral, so on the other hand, the consultations and the correspondence with the Government of the United States are confidential to an even greater degree and cannot be disclosed in this House. All that has been arranged so far, with the exception of some minor details, perhaps not yet fully consummated, has been placed before the House in the statement read by the Acting Prime Minister (Sir George Foster) just a week ago to-day, I believe.
As regards, taking the initiative in this matter, I accept, at once and with the greatest possible grace, the fullest responsibility for the part that I have taken. It would make no difference whether I accepted the responsibility or not, that responsibility would rest upon me. I began these negotiations with the Government of the United Kingdom more than three years ago 'by oral discussion with the then Secretary of (State for the Colonies and with the then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. The matter rested for a time, and then it was taken up again in the autumn of 1917; but on account of war conditions and by reason of the enormous pressure of business affairs between the two countries, the conclusion was then reached -that the purpose for the time being during the war would be better served by the appointment of a Canadian War Mission. That War Mission was appointed, and the hon. member fbr Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding) has borne worthy and true testimony to ithfe faidt It-haft members Oif that Mission

did splendid, unselfish, patriotic service for the country which they represented. Later on, and after the War Mission had about completed its work, the subject was further discussed. While I was abroad last year it was discussed, not only with members of the British Government, but with some members of the other Dominions of the Empire, notably with the Prime Minister of Australia. The matter stood then until October last when it was taken up in a more systematic form. Negotiations have been carried on ever since, and they have resulted in the announcement which was made in this House just one week ago and which has been received with great favour, not only in this country but in the United States. What reasons are there for appointing a Canadian representative at Washington? I need only emphasize them, as the President of the Council (iMr. Howell) has dwelt upon this phase of the argument.
Let me pay a tribute to every British Ambassador with whom I have been associated as Prime Minister, Lord Bryce, Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, Lord Heading. I found every one of them eager and anxious to do everything within his power to maintain the interests of this country; but Lord Bryce himself said to me that three-quarters of the work transacted by the Embassy at Washington had relation to the interests of Canada. We all know perfectly well that the staff of the British Embassy at Washington was never selected, so far as we could observe, with any special purpose of placing thereon persons specially familiar with the ideals of the people of this country and with conditions in Canada. I felt many a time during the past nine years that we should have a representative at Washington, and I am confident that such was the view of Sir Wilfrid Laurier during the latter years of his tenure of office as Prime Minister. I should greatly doubt whether his proposal merely suggested the appointment of a commercial agent at Washington. Why should you appoint a commercial agent at Washington?


William Stevens Fielding: The Prime Minister
says "his proposal." What proposal does he refer to? Where does he find the evidence of such a proposal?


Robert Laird Borden: The hon. member for Maisonneuve (Mr. Lemieux) alluded last year to a proposal.


William Stevens Fielding: Not to any proposal.
The hon. member for Maisonneuve said that he understood it was the desire of Sir 156i
Wilfrid Laurier to make an appointment, but I am free to say that the Government of Sir Wilfrid Laurier never made any proposal on the subject.
i Sir ROBERT BORDEN: I know that he never made any definite proposal. I was speaking of proposal in another sense. If my hon. friend is sensitive as regards the word "proposal," I will substitute "idea" or "thought," if he finds fault with my language. I know perfectly well that his idea was not put into execution, but I am certain that he had some such idea in his mind and that he did not intend to send a commercial agent to Washington. Why should he send a commercial agent to Washington? If he wanted to send a commercial agent to the United States, he-would send him to some of the great commercial centres, such as New York or Chie^ ago. He surely would not send a commercial agent to Washington, because a commercial agent would be practically useless there.
I have spoken of the tremendous interests of Canada at Washington and of the great volume of work in the Embassy relating to the interests of this country. I have spoken also of the absence of any person distinctly Canadian in his ideals or knowledge who might have afforded necessary assistance in dealing with these questions. The condition as it existed before the_ war in respect of relations between the United States and Canada will continue in the future, and I anticipate great advantages from the proposal which the Government have announced.
Criticism has been made that we should have come to Parliament with these negotiations. We could not come to Parliament with these negotiations because they were of a highly confidential character from first to last. Every gentleman familiar with constitutional procedure should know that in respect of such matters it is absolutely essential that the Government shall take the initiative and that the result of any proposal which they may formulate shall be announced to Parliament afterwards. I should say to the hon. member for Quebec: East (Mr. Lapointe) that when we announced last year that we proposed to send;: a diplomatic representative to Washington,, we said about everything that could be said on the subject. That involved everything because the practice of diplomacy is an ancient one and is governed by a great body of rules, conventions and understandings that have grown up, so that the send-

ing of a diplomatic agent is perfectly intelligible to any one who cares to study the subject. Further than that, the whole matter under British constitutional practice has always been regarded as peculiarly within the sphere of the prerogative of the Crown, and that means, under our constitutional practice, within the discretion of the executive government. Instead of the view that itthiis infringes, in some way upon the rights and privileges of .this House, I should like to point out to the hon. member for Quebec Bast, who is & constitutional student, that the exercise of such a prerogative in this way give-s hi Whe House olf 'Commons a greater control of the whole question than it could get (iff legislation were introduced. 'Let me read to him the words Of a great constitutional authority on that (Subject. Dicey, than whom no man stands higher in the disteussdbn of constitutional questions, points out -that:
The survival of the prerogative, conferring as it does wide discretionary power on the Cabinet involves a consequence which constantly escapes attention. It immensely increases the authority of the House of Commons, and ultimately of the constituencies by which that House is returned. Ministers must in the exercise of all discretionary power inevitably obey the predominant authority in the State.
As the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding) has said, the Cabinet is only a committee of the House of Commons, and it can continue to act as such only as long as it has the support of a majority of that House. Then Dicey continues:
Now that the House of Commons has become by far the most important part of the sovereign body, the ministry in all matters of discretion carry out, or tend to carry out, the will of the House. When, however, the Cabinet cannot act except by means of legislation other considerations come into play.
In the Mother Country, the power of the House of Lords is sometimes interposed. In this country we sometimes find our benevolent efforts frustrated by the action of another body. A very good example which is given by Dicey is this: During Queen Victoria's- reign the House of Commons passed a Bill for the abolition of purchase in the army. The Bill was rejected by the Lords. The object, however, was achieved by Royal Warrant under the prerogative. Dicey sums it u-p in this -way:
The prerogatives of the Crown have become the privileges of the people.
Now every one who is at all familiar with constitutional questions knows that the Sovereign has -prerogatives in respect to 
foreign relations. Those prerogatives must be exercised upon the advice of the Sovereign's advisers. When, therefore, we undertook to deal with this matter we dealt with it as advisers of the Crown by confidential communication. When those communications had eventually reached an understanding, when matters were ripe both in the United Kingdom and in the United States for an announcement to be made to this Parliament, the announcement was made. So the Government accepts, as, of course it must accept, -full responsibility for the course which it has taken, and that responsibility is one which we shall hear very lightly, because -we believe that the time has long since been ripe when this great and -growing nation should have its own direct representative at Washington. Instead of cavilling at the idea that a Canadian Minister sitting at Washington should represent the whole British Empire when the ambassador is absent, I am inclined to think that the people of Canada will be proud and glad that so important a duty and responsibility rest upo-n -a Canadian sent to Washington by the Government of Canada.
Further than that, the intimate association between the people of the United States and Canada has led to a very perfect understanding between the peoples of the two countries. Perhaps there are no two nations in the world between whose peoples a more perfect comprehension exists at the present time than that which does exist between the people of Canada and the people of the United States. Thus, I venture to think, as my hon. friend the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Rowell) has Well said, that this proposal to have a Canadian at Washington acting, not in opposition to, hut in co-operation with the British ambassador, will tend not only to the goo'd of this country but to a -more perfect understanding and better relations between the Empire of which we form a part and t)he great republic of our kinsmen to the south.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Speaker, as this
is the firislt opportunity I have hiad in tlhi-s House of addressing my right honourable friend as Prime Minister may I avail myiseH'f of the ocoasion to s-ay that I am pleased to see my right honourable friend so restored in health -as Ito be able again to resume the very onerous duties of his high position.
I -am sure it will come somewhat as a surprise to the people of this Dominion when, on reading the debates of this House



MA'S' 17, 1920

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to-morrow, they discover that in this new and far-reaching step which the Government is about to take, if indeed, it has not already been taken, the only word the 'Government has to give to the people of Canada to all intents and purposes is:- this is not a matter on which we can give you any information one way or the other; this is not a matter on which you are entitled to know anything one way or the other; it is a matter so secret that the Govemimenlt .itsel'f must deal and selttle it without; any knowledge on the pairit of the people or oif the people's representatives in Parliament. That is the main point in the motion which is before the House this evening. The hon. gentlemen who have spoken on the other side of the House, the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Rowell) and the right hon. the Prime Minister (Sir Robert Borden), have dwelt at considerable length on the reasons why Canada should have a permanent representative at Washington. There is nothing in the motion before the House to-night referring to the wisdom or unwisdom of having a permanent representative at Washington. My hon. friend the member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding) in introducing this resolution took particular care to point out to the House that that was a question which might well be discussed at another time or upon another occasion; that what he wished to do by this resolution was to bring concretely before this House and the country the question of the supremacy of Parliament or the autocracy of the Cabinet. That is all that is involved in the resolution before the House. Let me read the resolution:
This House desires to record its opinion that before any arrangement respecting the permanent representation of Canada at Washington is consummated, the House should he fully informed concerning the negotiations between the Canadian, Imperial, and United States Governments. and all correspondence and Orders in Council on the subject should be submitted to the House.
Is there an hon. member of this House representing a constituency in this country who will say that that is not what his own constituents demand of him? I, for my part, cannot see how any member of this House can go before his constituents or before the people of this country and say he is prepared, in regard to any transaction, I do not care how small or how great, to defend any action of a ministry which cannot be openly disclosed before the people's representatives in this House.
When, a week ago, the right hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster), at that time the Acting Prime Minister, announced in the House the matter which we are discussing this evening,
I asked my right hon. friend if he would at a very early date lay on the table of the House all the correspondence relating to this matter, and he replied in these words:
I would merely say that all the available papers in connection with the negotiations will be brought down as quickly as possible and presented to the House.
That was the promise given to us a week ago, that all the available papers in connection with the matter would be brought down as quickly as possible and presented to the House. My right hon. friend at that time evidently anticipated that it was going to be possible to give the representatives of the people in Parliament at least some information in regard to this far-reaching matter. But to-night the Prime Minister says to us: I have had all the correspondence carefully gone over, I have examined the papers myself, and hon. members of the House of Commons shall not see one of them. That is what we are now told, that the file has been gone through by the Prime Minister himself, and that having been looked through, the people's representatives in Parliament are not to have any access to the papers or any of the correspondence. Weil, Sir, all I can say is, it is a mighty bad beginning in a new departure if our foreign policy,-because this is a venture in foreign policy,- is_ to toe 'bound up with secrecy from the start. We are driving right into the very vortex that created the whole situation in Europe, going against the very thing which the allied nations have been urging so strongly, namely -that diplomacy should not be secret but that it should be open and above board. Why, Sir, if in a matter which concerns the relations between the different parts of the Empire, between different nations, we start off by informing the people's representatives in Parliament that they cannot be told one word in regard to the conditions which have brought about such an allimportant change, what may we expert, as the result of such diplomacy?
Now, my hon. friend the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Rowell) said that this matter had been discussed in this country back and forth, and that there was no doubt about the voice of the press in regard to it from the Atlantic to the Pacific. He spoke particularly of one paper, the Winnipeg
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Free Press, and he said that we would all recognize that paper as the exponent of public opinion in the Middle West. Well, I have in my hand the latest editorial on this very subject in the Winnipeg Free Press, and I will read it to my hon. friend, and to the House, because apparently while the President of the Privy Council is not willing to listen to anything that- may be said by the people's representatives here, he attaches great importance to the press generally, and to this organ in particular. What the Winnipeg Free Press says in its editorial is what my hon. friend (Mr. Fielding) has said in his motion. Under the heading, "Our Minister at Washington," the Winnipeg Free Press of May 12th has the following:
The appointment of a Canadian Minister Plenipotentiary at Washington is an interesting innovation about which it will be possible to comment intelligently when more information is available than was supplied In the very guarded statement read to the House of Commons on Monday by Sir George Foster.
And that is all the information we have.
Mr. King, the Opposition leader, expressed the view that before the arrangement-whatever it might prove to be-was made. Parliament should have been given the opportunity to discuss and consider it. However this may be, it is beyond dispute that it will be the duty of Parliament to submit the arrangement to very keen scrutiny to make sure that it is all that is being claimed for it. It will be within the right of Parliament to object, if it does not approve of what is being done; and any such recorded objection would bring the whole thing to the ground.
Meanwhile the need is for full and explicit information.
Does the hon. President of the Privy Council hear that statement?
Newton Wesley Rowell: Yes.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: That is exactly what my hon. friend from Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding), is asking, that before this matter i.s consummated we get full and explicit information.
It is intimated that our Canadian minister will deal with all matters arising between Canada and the United States which are exclusively Canadian in character; the Imperial ambassador will participate in the negotiations only when Imperial interests are involved. Very well; but what happens if a disagreement should arise-which might easily happen-
Those are questions which any hon. gentleman sitting on the other -side might reply to later in the evening, -so that the country may get light on thi-s subject as speedily as possible.
-between the Canadian minister and the British ambassador as to whether a question is,

or is not, exclusively Canadian? Even in the exclusively Canadian matters about which there is no dispute, will the Canadian minister carry negotiations through to the end; or will it be necessary, in the final resort, to call in thq British minister to do the actual signing?
Our representative is to be known as a minister. Will he be accepted as a minister by the State Department at Washington? Will he be a member of the diplomatic corps, having all the rights, powers, immunities and privileges enjoyed by the ministers of all other countries represented at Washington? Will he be the equal in diplomatic statute of, let us say, the minister from Venezuela? Or will his position at Washington be actually undefined with a mere courtesy status? Parliament and the country will need conclusive answer to these and similar questions; and not until this information is supplied will it be possible to say whether this is a step forward or backward.
It is asserted in certain quarters that this marks an enlargement of Canadian powers and that it is another step forward on the road to nationhood. The Government at Ottawa no doubt believes that this will be the effect of the innovation. But we regard with some trepidation formal arrangements entered into three years after the adoption of a declared policy of equality of status between all the British nations by which it is possible that Canada may accept ratify, and confirm a status of admitted diplomatic inferiority, formally putting her name to documents that confirm this subordination. If the Canadian minister at Washington is only a camouflaged chief clerk or a commissiner it would be better to have no minister there.
Those are not the words of hon. gentlemen on this side of the House, they are the words of the Winnipeg Free Press, which my hon. friend the President of the Privy Council so highly values.


Mr. MURPHY:: A Government authority.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The article
continues;
If his position there is by courtesy, if Canada cannot endow her representative with all the powers which other ministers enjoy, then Canada should send no one to Washington until she can vest him with the true prerogatives of office.
Information upon these extremely important points is lacking; until it is forthcoming any conclusive judgment upon the wisdom or otherwise of the Government's action is not possible. But the matter is of great importance and Parliament should regard it as one of its prime duties to see that the matter is fully discussed from all angles and in the light of full knowledge.	.
It is unnecessary to point out, Mr. Speaker, that that is exactly what we on this side of the House are asking should be done. In this resolution we are asking that Parliament should be informed in as much detail as possible in regard to this transaction before it is finally consummated.
But we have not only the views of our Canadian press. Since this announcement was made, there has been time for word to come from other parts of the Empire, and

what do we find? In Great Britain, in Australia and in the other Dominions we find expressions of opinion questioning the wisdom of this arrangement without any light or information upon it. Let me read from another leading daily, an organ of the present Government-the Montreal Star. That paper has a well known correspondent in England whose cables, published under the name of "Windermere," are read with interest in all parts of this country. And I should mention to the House that those who know "Windermere" know him to be a member of the British House of Commons. If one looks at the Montreal Star of May 12, one will find a despatch relating to the announcement which was made in this House on this subject and to a similar announcement made in the British House on the evening of the same day. That despatch was cabled by "Windermere." Omitting a few preliminary remarks, it says:
There is, nevertheless, widespread sympathy among Parliamentarians-
Those are the members of the British Parliament.	-
-with the view recorded from Ottawa that so momentous a departure might well have been calmly and fully debated in Parliament, so that a momentous departure setting a precedent for a revolution in the whole machinery of British diplomacy in all countries could have been reviewed in all its aspects before the change was made. As it is, the change seems to the public as having been rushed.
Then referring to the Australian view "Windermere" says:
An Australian of high rank whom I consulted assures me that Australia is now certain to demand that she also have full rank with an Australian minister at Washington. New Zealand and South Africa should, he declared, follow suit, with the result that ultimately, not alone Washington, but every other great foreign capital, and certainly Paris, Rome, Berlin, Petrograd, and Tokio, will have its circle of fully accredited British Empire ministers among whom the British Ambassador will be first, perhaps, but first among equals. He added: "If the Canadian minister at Washington is to be the fully authorized British Ambassador in the absence of the British representative, we assume that the Australian minister will be singled out for the same distinction in some equally important European capital, or say, Japan.
"You Canadians claim that this is the national prayer and, indeed, the inevitable sequel to Canada's new natioinal status as accorded at the Peace Conference. Very well! we as Australians throw up our hats with you, but don't run away with the notion that you have not perhaps unwittingly taken on far-reaching new responsibilities which every Dominion within the Empire will wish to take too, and which carries the seed of vital changes in the whole structure of an Empire.
"There was some cheering in the British Commons when Bonar Law announced the
change. Most English public men welcome every sign of increasing power and influence of England's younger partners overseas, but I can quite understand the feeling of many longsighted Englishmen and perhaps some Australians that before making this plunge into the unknown at the bidding of the Canadian ministers, who, perhaps, only half appreciate its ultimate significance, it would have been wiser to discuss the whole subject round the friendly family table of the Imperial Conference. We could have all had our say then."
Will any one, viewing the affairs of the British Empire from the point of view from which they are likely to be regarded by representatives of the British Isles and of the different Dominions, find anything unreasonable in a request of that kind? If our action in failing to discuss this matter openly and freely is going to create some unrest in Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, and some concern in England, surely we are not helping to bring about the closer relations between the different parts of the British Empire which it ought to be the object of every free Parliament within the Empire to bring about. There are very strong reasons why a transaction that is fraught (with so many possibilities should not have been finally consummated until Parliament had had a full opportunity to discuss it in all its bearings.
When hon. members have referred to the debates that have taken place in this House they have spoken about a permanent representative at Washington. That is a subject upon . which we might all be very much united, and it might well be that there might be no difference of opinion as to the propriety of having a permanent representative at Washington. If there were differences of opinion, surely it would be worth while having those differences discussed in Parliament and the case considered upon its merits. But what the Government have consummated in this transaction is something far different from a proposal to establish a permanent representative of Canada at Washington. It is not only a permanent representative that is proposed, but a Minister Plenipotentiary is to be appointed who, to all intents and purposes, is to be the British Ambassador at Washington during the time when the British Ambassador may be away from the country or absent from duty. No. one can say how long a time that will be; no. one can say what questions will come up while the Canadian plenipotentiary is acting as British Ambassador at Washington. Is there any one here who believes that a step of that kind is going to be free from all kinds of possible danger? What is it that has brought about the desire to have our own

office and position, are entitled to know how much it is going to cost and to what _ it is going to lead. Finally, let me say, Mr. Speaker, that we are entitled at this stage, of all times in the history of the world, in matters respecting our relations with other countries, to end secret diplomacy once and for all, and have our diplomacy open and above board or not have it at all.


Rt. Hon. Sir GEORGE FOSTER:: Mr. Speaker, some time in the history, I believe, of every man it occurs that what seemed to him golden in the heated moment of discussion appears to him very much like lead when, an hour or two afterwards, he has cooled off. So, in the best of good spirit, I would suggest to my hon. friend who has just taken his seat, that when he reads his speech to-morrow, after he has cooled off, and looks at it coldly as it appears on the printed page, I doubt if he will be very proud of that speech. And I might also carry that suggestion a little bit further, and apply it to those hon. gentlemen who so valiantly applauded him-as to whether, reading the speech over in cold blood, they will think of it in exactly the same enthusiastic way in which they have applauded the speaker to-night.


An hon. MEMBER:: We shall be more enthusiastic.


Mr. McMASTER:: It will warm the blood.


An hon. MEMBER:: Much more so.


Sir GEORGE FOSTER:: I can quite see that, and I will say it is no disadvantage to my hon. friends opposite, who have been so lethargic for so long a time, that they should have some warm blood pulsing their veins to let the country know they are really alive.


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: What about yourself?


Georges Henri Boivin: Order.


George Green Foster: That is just by the way. I am not going to enter very lengthily into discussion of this matter to-night, but I will take up a few points that my hon. friend has made and see how much there really is in them.
In the first place, he made much of the statement, repeated over and over again, that the Government iwas denying information to the House and to the representatives of the people. That is always a favourite chord to touch when you want to arouse your followers-either in the House or out of it-on any particular subject; but how far was my hon. friend right in demanding the information which he demanded on this 
particular subject and at this particular time? After all my hon. friend from Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding)-who has probably had one of the longest experiences in public life of any .Canadian now in Parliament-knows that in all govern- . ments there are certain negotiations that take place, and it is impossible to make public the stages of those negotiations and their various phases whilst they are in progress; and a great deal of information- sometimes a very great deal-never is made public at all during the time when publicity might be harmful in many ways with reference to living statesmen in different countries who have been carrying the negotiations on, or with reference to the countries themselves whose interests have been under discussion. That is one of the things that every statesman and every Cabinet Minister of experience knows; it. is simply a demand which is absolutely without good foundation, that certain things shall be known while negotiations are going on, or shall be made public, and that there shall be nothing secret, nothing confidential, nothing kept away from the view of the legislature or of the ipeople-that everything shall he open-open diplomacy as my hon. friend said. Now that position is nullified by actual fact and by actual practice in the experience of every statesman and every member of a government. In no case where Governments carry on international negotiations, even in these days when open diplomacy is in faT greater vogue than it was in previus times, is the course of the negotiations step by step and from hour to hour made known to parliaments, legislatures and the public of the different 'Countries concerned. The events which have taken place during the last five years; the events which have taken place even since the Armistice have been one great proof of the impossibility of successfully carrying on negotiations of a delicate and complex nature, involving the prejudices, the policies, the national aspirations, of different countries, if every day the reporter puts before the public just what has taken place, what has been said and what has been concluded with reference thereto. You must draw a line somewhere; there must be a point beyond which you cannot go in publicity. After all, the chief thing is the conclusion that has been arrived at; the arrangement that has been actually made. If I buy a watch, the purpose which I had in mind is carried out when that watch keeps the correct time and enables me to ascertain the hour of the day by referring to it. But if I am curious to know

how that watch is made up and I dig into its springs and its cogs and its general interior, I shall make impossible of achievement the very purpose and idea of the thing itself. As I say, the thing that has been actually come at as a conclusion is the thing that matters, and it is the gist of that which has been given to Parliament and which Parliament has a perfect right to know.
My hon. friend would raise this matter into a controversy between the autocracy of a Cabinet and the supremacy of Parliament. Now, that is an exaggerated method of expressing what is happening to-night with reference to the demand of our friends on the other side and the information which is being given by the Government. It is not a ease of the autocracy of the Government against the supremacy of Parliament; it is a case of the proper co-ordination of the functions of Government and the functions of Parliament. My' hon. friend says that we should have come down with a resolution affirming the principle that a trade commissioner should be sent to Washington-


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Not a trade
commissioner; oh, no.


George Green Foster: Or, if you want higher flights than that: a resolution that a Minister Plenipotentiary should be stationed at Washington. Then, he says, we should come down with another resolution stating that if it was considered best, that Minister Plenipotentiary sent to represent Canada at Washington should also be empowered to represent the British Government as its ambassador, if the British Government so desired. That was the way in which my hon. friend would approach the subject. Would he have got anywhere in approaching the subject in that way? Is it feasible? Is it practical? You must first proceed 'by Way of negotiation, oral and otherwise, in order that the Governments concerned may test each other's views; in order to settle upon the modus operandi; what shall be the functions, what shall be the powers, what can be done in this respect and in that. Then, after you come to conclusions that are satisfactory to the two Governments you bring your conclusions to Parliament, and there it is that the supremacy of Parliament exerts itself. Parliament is then master of the situation. It can turn out the Government which has gone so far, if it considers it proper to do so. It can stotp them at the point at which they give the information and not allow the proceeding to go further, if it considers it
wise to do so. Parliament is, in the end, the supreme arbiter; nothing can be finally carried out without its approval. But my hon. friend would proceed in the way that he suggests. Did the party to which he belonged, and to which he istill belongs, proceed in that way in respect to the reciprocity negotiations in 1911? Did they bring down to Parliament a resolution affirming that it would be a proper and right thing to send a delegation of ministers to Washington to undertake the negotiation of a treaty of reciprocity with the United States? I have no memory of a course like that having been adopted. And did they then come down with another resolution affirming that certain ministers should go down there as plenipotentiaries for the time being to work upon that principle, bring back an arrangement, and submit it to the House? Not at all. They did what was the practical thing; what was the customary thing, having regard to their prerogatives. They came to the conclusion that it would be a good thing to have a reciprocity treaty with the United States. They therefore sent their ministers to Washington to negotiate a treaty. We in the House of Commons knew nothing about it at that time-did not know what the terms of the treaty were; did not know how much they would give up; did not know how much they would get. The whole thing was done entirely behind our backs. While we were in perfect ignorance of what they were doing from hour to hour and day to day, they were proceeding to negotiate a binding commercial arrangement, a reciprocity treaty, which they would bring back and, if they could, put, through the House; if they could not put it through the House they would, of course, take the responsibility and meet the fate which would attach to that responsibility. They went without the voice of Parliament or of the country behind them. They did their work; they brought back the result; and as soon as they asked the voice of Parliament and the voice of the country, they got their answer, as every Government will get theirs if their action is not in accordance with the wishes of the people.
When my hon. friend asserts that we should have proceeded as he suggests with reference to this negotiation, he did not back up what he said by pointing to like things that had been done by his own party. I do not find fault with his party for doing what they did in the case of the reciprocity negotiations. It was their prerogative; it was their right; they acted in a perfectly constitutional way. So in this matter, this Government have exer-

cised their 'prerogative; they have proceeded with these negotiations; they have brought them to a point where finality has been reached in certain respects; they bring that arrangement back, and they submit it to Parliament. Parliament is supreme in this matter; Parliament is the arbiter of the whole thing.
The hon. gentleman stated that our position on this side of the House was: " When we demand information, you take the position that the representatives of the people in the House of Commons shall not see one whit of what passes, shall not know a thing of the negotiations that have taken place, shall not have all the papers or any of the papers placed before them for their information." That is not, as I stated, the main thing. The main thing is that the arrangement which has been up to this time concluded shall be in its essence and effect made known to the House of Commons, to the Parliament of Chnada; and that is what has been done. My hon. friend had rather a grievance that I had stated that all available papers would be brought down. That is always the answer when demands are made for negotiable instruments of that kind. After negotiations have been carried on, when the papers are called for, you bring down the papers that it is in the public interest to bring down, and you are not obliged to bring down, neither is it understood that you shall bring down papers, the publicity of which would not be useful, which might, in fact, be disadvantageous to the general public interest, the international interest, the interest of the people of the countries involved. My hon. friend supported his demand by reading an extract from the Winnipeg Free Press, an organ of great power and intelligence, not by any means an organ of this Government, but an organ of public opinion which I, for my part, like to read and follow in so far as its suggestions are good. My hon. friend also read extracts from other papers. When he analyses really what these extracts from papers show as to the demand that is made and which is expressed in the extracts, it amounts to nothing more than this, that if an arrangement is made, before it is put into effect, Parliament and the country should know exactly what it is. But that is not at all a demand from the press or from those papers that every step of the negotiations, oral as well as written, shall be placed in print or in essence before Parliament. Any one knows that with delicate negotiations of this kind such a course would be neither advantageous or useful. Some one [Sir George Foster.3
has made the statement-I think it was made in one of the extracts read by my hon. friend-that if we were to have under this arrangement nothing more at Washington than a glorified trade commissioner or a camouflaged chief clerk, the House and the country ought to know that. The House knows that, and the* country knows it and will know it. It is not a glorified trade commissioner nor a camouflaged chief clerk who goes to Washington under this arrangement; it is a minister plenipotentiary, and the term itself designates the position and the power of the person who has that appointment. Therefore, the anxiety of my hon. friend that we shall have at Washington something more than a glorified trade commissioner or a camouflaged chief clerk may be set at rest entirely in respect to that.
He has read also expressions of opinion voiced by contributors to newspapers in the old country and in or on the part of Australia, and he has raised many doubts and fears as to what will happen in all this. His counsel would have been that nothing should be done in respect to this matter until all had got together at a general conference in the old country and the matter had been talked over and conclusions reached. He also asks the question: What will happen in Washington when the minister plenipotentiary goes there in his dual capacity of representatives of the interests of Canada and possibly of representative of the British Government in the absence of the British Ambassador? He also asks the question: What will happen and who will be responsible for him, for instance, when the minister plenipotentiary is ''carrying out his duties with reference to Canada and Canadian affairs, which, in so far as they relate to the two countries, will be within his power? The Dominion of Canada is responsible for him in that capacity; he receives his instructions from the Dominion Government, and he acts in conformity with those instructions. That is plain and evident from the premises. Then the hon. gentleman asks: When the British Ambassador is absent and the minister plenipotentiary is acting as British Ambassador and in his place, who will be responsible for what he does then-will it be Canada or will it be Great Britain? Equally in that case, if he is standing in the place of the ambassador in the absence of the regular incumbent, he is acting under instructions from the British Government, and he is re-sponsnble under those instructions to the British Government.


Andrew Ross McMaster: Supposing the Prime
Minister and the (Government of this country gave him instructions diametrically opposed to the instructions given him by the Imperial or Home Government, what would happen?


George Green Foster: There is not
much necessity of asking what will happen then, because that never could happen.


Andrew Ross McMaster: Such a thing is possible.


George Green Foster: In so far as he is the plenipotentiary for Canada and acting for Canada, he takes his instructions from the Canadian Government alone. In so far as he is acting as an ambassador for the British Government in the absence of the regular ambassador, he takes his instructions from the British Government, and he is responsible to that Government for the way in which he carries them out. That is as plain as it can be, so that what my hon. friend conjures up in his mind is an impossibility, a thing which cannot happen. But the alternative which was hinted at by my hon. friend has something appalling in it from another point of view. My hon. friend said: Let Canada manage her affairs with reference to the United 'States, and let Great Britain manage her affairs alone with reference to the United States, in so far as they touch the interests of Great Britain. If that is pushed to its extremity, is that co-operation? Does it not, when pressed to its logical conclusion, have in it the elements of danger in the future as to cooperation and continued unity and the solidarity of the Empire? It seems to me, and I think it will commend itself to my hon. friend, that if that is his alternative to the principle which has been adopted in the arrangement which has been made and laid before this Parliament, there are greater dangers to be apprehended in the future along that line than along the present line where in co-operation the two countries work together in unity, each having its special work to do under its special instructions from its own government, and cooperating, as they can co-operate, in a spirit of unity and of good fellowship.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friend will recall that I coupled what I said in that connection with the remark that there should always be co-operation and conference and discussion.


George Green Foster: There is that exactly. There is first, a clear definition of the powers. In matters of purely Canadian concern the plenipotentiary takes his instructions from Canada, and he works under those instructions and is not instructed by the British Ambassador. Cooperation, counsels of wisdom and of experience, should, and I suppose always will be perfectly common between the two, but the British Ambassador does not interfere in respect to matters purely Canadian, and the Canadian plenipotentiary does not interfere in matters purely of Imperial concern. At the same time, there may be the closest intimacy and unity of thought and of effort between the two. So I think there is no more danger in an arrangement based on conditions as they have been outlined to Parliament than there would be in following out my hon. friend's line.
My hon. friend made a very fine appeal to the sympathies of his friends on the other side of the House, when he made the rather unwarranted assertion that the Government of Canada, the present Government particularly, never came down to the House except when it wanted money, and that then it came. My hon. friend knows that that is an exaggerated statement. He also knows that there are few things which can be carried out in the way of public policy or public enterprise, initiated or aided by a government, which do not require for their carrying out to have money placed at the disposal of the Government. That is the privilege which Parliament holds. It holds the power of the money vote; and of course it is always necessary to come to Parliament for money in order to carry out the policies and the enterprises initiated through the Government and by the Government. But does not my hon. friend think that he made rather a catchpenny argument when he so strongly and so enthusiastically put it as a point of disadvantage to the Government that they never came to Parliament unless they wanted money? As Parliament holds the purse-strings it is absolutely impossible for any government in connection with any governmental policy, or any governmental enterprise, begun, initiated and brought to a certain point by the Government as the committee of Parliament, not, to come ultimately to Parliament and the House ot Commons for the wherewithal to carry those policies and those enterprises through. My hon. friend need only look at the history and the experience of his own party to know that governments do act in that way, and to take that responsibility. Take the project of the Grand Trunk Pacific

railway, for instance. Read its history, let your memory stray over the initiatory processes of that undertaking, the effects of which still remain with us, and will for many a generation. I suppose any one might have made the same statement with regard to the government of that day, that they only came to Parliament in respect to this great transaction, involving almost unlimited expenditure, after they had negotiated, signed, and practically sealed the arrangement with the companies with whom they made the bargain. Governments do act that way. They take that responsibility, and they carry out their measures through that medium. They must in the end always come to Parliament for its sanction before any of these enterprises, can be carried through to completion.
My hon. friend in the end, as an argument often addressed and an appeal often made, says that in this age we should have no more secret diplomacy. Now what does he really mean by that? When he as the leader of a government carries on the affairs of this country, will he undertake to live by that rule of policy, that there shall be nothing undertaken by the Government in its transactions with Japan, in its transactions with China, in its transactions with France, in its transactions with any other country in the world with which it comes into contact daily, and where delicate questions arise involving negotiation and careful and wise counsels -will he abide by his rule that before he undertakes to write a communication to a foreign government he will come down to Parliament and make plain to Parliament and the country jusk what he is going to write and get the approval of Parliament and the country before he undertakes to do it? Will everything be open, no secrecy, nothing kept back, but from the very start every transaction made public to the legislature of the country and to the people of the country and to the world? T venture to say that my hon. friend will never lead a government along those lines, or if he attempts, dt, he will never lead a government successfully. Under the constitution of things as they are in the world, that cannot be done, and it will never be possible for it to be done so long as there are conflicting and opposing interests between different countries of the world.
My hon. friend, I hope, will not be altogether too unquiet with reference to this matter. Has he not conjured up possibilities which have very little foundation in

fact? You could, with reference to any policy, at any time within the last eighty years, and with reference to every advance that has taken place in the constitutional development of Great Britain and of her Overseas Dominions and dependencies-you could have conjured up the' same difficulties, made the same suppositions in order to prejudice or to oppose or to baulk, the development along certain lines of progress. You could have always done that, and it has always been done. But the supreme fact in the constitutional progress and growth of the British Empire and of its outlying parts has been that these successive steps have been taken, each one adding liberty, power and importance to the outlying portions, each step also adding strength, unity and solidarity to the Empire fabric as a whole, and that the fears of the timid fortunately did not outweigh the strong inspiration and hope of the courageous ones who took the part that progress seemed to indicate and trusted to the good sense, the strength and the capacity of the people of ithe Empire to guide in ways that would be advantageous and to avoid results that would be hurtful. And so the whole history of British diplomacy and of British constitutional development has passed on from step to step. I for one can see that in any new arrangement bearing within it responsibilities such as this arrangement bears, there may be about it eventualities that may well give us pause, but it is for the good sense, the wise counsel, the steady and cool judgment ot the British people

qualities which have been such distinctive features of their progress in the past-to maintain their sway in the future and to guide along proper and safe lines for every one of these opening developments towards greater power, greater importance, greater liberty and consequently greater happiness for the Empire as a whole and for its constituent parts.


Rodolphe Lemieux: I have felt a great deal of interest in the official explanation given by the right hon. gentleman (Sir Robert Border.) and by his colleagues on the treasury benches, Mr. Speaker, as regards the appointment of a Minister at Washington. It seems to me that this question is a very simple one. We have discussed this evening the merits of the case, while the whole point is a question of procedure. And I believe, Sir, that the amendment which r.3s been offered by my hon. friend from Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding) asserts the only principle which ought to be

adhered to by both parties in this House,- because long ago the battle for responsible government was won in this country. After carefully reading the amendment, whose words are well weighed, I wondered why there should be any division of opinion in this House as regards its merits. Because, I repeat, it asserts a principle which embodies a golden rule for the government of Canada.
I do not understand the objections which have been made by my right hon. friend, the last speaker (Sir George Foster), to this amendment, unless the right hon. gentleman has still the notions of fifty years ago. Those of us who are students of Canadian history-and we are all students of the history of our country-know that in the early forties and before as the fight was carried on by the friends of responsible government, they were denounced at every turn by the members of the Family Compact. The members of the Family Com-past in those days spoke against Baldwin and iWilliam Lyon 'Mackenzie, as my right hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce spoke this evening against the grandson of William Lyon Mackenzie (Mr. Mackenzie King) and against the member for Shelburne and Queen's. In those days, as to-night, the friends of responsible government wanted to exact from the government of the day the correspondence, the information, the whys and the wherefores of the policies of the Government, but the governor of the day, who in himself constituted the whole government, Sir Francis Bond Head, speaking of his critics said, "They think they are the friends of responsible government, whilst at heart they are only disloyal." But he lived long enough to see responsible government firmly rooted in Canadian soil, and I am somewhat surprised that seventy-five years afterward we find a Canadian minister and a Canadian government reviving the same old reactionary policy as was advocated by Sir Francis Bond Head in those far-off days.
The Government, Sir, do not seem to be very free with information; on the contrary, they seem to be very secretive indeed. But they live in a fool's paradise, if they think, because during the five strenuous years of the war the people of Canada and ithe Parliament of this Dominion in a very generous, yes, in a chivalrous way, gave them a mandate to carry on, that they can continue the war system now that the glamour of war has gone. I repeat, they are living in a fool's paradise, because if
there is one principle which has triumphed as a result of the great world conflict, it is that a people must be represented by its elected representatives, and that the people should be trusted.
My friend, who is fond of a little story at times, will remember that in the old days of the kingdom of Poland there was a king named Auguste. He had, as my hon. friend had some years ago, his "moments of weakness"-his being different from those of my hon. friend in that they resulted from a fondness for spirits. King Auguste, when he was particularly drunk, would say, "All Poland is now intoxicated." Well, when my hon. friend has the information served to him in council by the Prime Minister as to the whys and wherefores of the appointment of a semi-ambassador at Washington, he thinks that all Canada is informed and ought to be satisfied.
The right hon. gentleman told us that he had many very serious conversations with the Secretary of State for the Colonies in London regarding impending changes in our national status. I accept his word, Sir; I do not doubt that he had many very serious conversations with Lord Milner. But let me say, with all due respect to Lord Milner's great ability as an Imperial statesman, that if the status of Canada was altered as a result of the conversations of our Prime Minister with Lord Milner, that status was not altered on the maximum line but on the minimum.
Indeed the ministers of the Crown during the last five years have so often been away from Canada, have so often approached the round table clubs, and the Imperial conferences, have kept so near Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Balfour and the great Imperial statesmen that they have come to believe that they are no more responsible to that little country, to that little dominion, to that little colony, Canada, but that they are only responsible to the Imperialistic junta over in England.
My hon. friend the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Rowell) said that he had given all the information last year and that we on this side of the House had been perfectly satisfied with his answers. As regards my humble self, let me correct my hon. friend. When the item for a representative at Washington came up for discussion before the House, speaking of Sir Charles Gordon who, is a respected citizen of Montreal and one of its great capitains of industry, I said that he had been during the war an excellent trade commissioner for Canada, had advertised our country, had

built up financial and other friendships with the 'United States and that if a trade commissioner were to 'be appointed in Washington I would like to see him continue in the performance of these functions. But I spoke of a trade commissioner, not of a semi-ambassador-a semi-ready ambassador-or a minister plenipotentiary. My hon. friend stated that he had accepted his . explanation. My hon. friend who sits at my right (Mr. McKenzie) expressed then, the views of Hie Majesty's loyal Opposition. He said:
Is the establishment of new relations between this country and a foreign country, although that foreign country is a neighbour, not of such importance that it should be dealt with by Parliament, and that the will of the people as represented by Parliament should be ascertained upon such a question?
Further,
These relations are of such an important character that the whole policy of the Government should be embodied in concrete legislation and thoroughly threshed out before being put into force.
In these wise words my hon. friend put the gist of the amendment which is being offered to the House this evening by the hon. member for 'Shelburne and Queen's. But we are told that this is not merely a trade commissioner, that we aire not going to appoint at Washington a High Commissioner such as we have in London, and such as we have in a modified form in Paris, but that we will have in the future a Minister Plenipotentiary. I have nothing to teach my hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster) in international law; I cannot give him any lesson in the English language because he is a perfect master of language, but will he tell me in all seriousness that Canada, as a Dominion, has the right to appoint in a foreign country a minister plenipotentiary? Does he not know that in international law only independent people and independent countries can appoint ministers plenipotentiary and ambassadors? You cannot appoint a consul. I dare say that the British consul in Washington will have more power and influence than the Canadian Minister Plenipotentiary. Why, Sir, I have been in Europe of late and heaven knows what troubles we have with passports in moving from one country to another. Could I get my passport vised by the High Commissioner in London? Could I get my passport Vised by the Canadian Agent in Paris? No, Mr. Speaker, I had to go to the British cbnsul and so it will be at Washington; Canadians will have to go to the British consul.

What is the use of camouflaging this whole question before the Canadian people? The full import of this is that hon. gentlemen during five years of war have carried on in the name, and on behalf, of the Canadian people. The name of Canada has loomed great on the horizon. The name of Canada was never greater than it is to-day as a result of the war but the status of Canada was not changed on account of the war. These hon. gentlemen, in order to justify the extravagance of the Government during these five years, are preparing another balloon for the Canadian people: "We have secured recognition as an international power; we have obtained a new status; we now have a Minister Plenipotentiary at Washington; hail, hail, the people pf Canada, come ye brave electors unto the polls and vote once more for the progressive Tory party \" That is the full import of this question; nothing else.
True,-and I make the statement in perfect good faith-there are already forebodings, there are tidings which are teaching my hon. friends that it is not wise to play with fire and you are only playing with fire on this issue. You are not sincere, you are not serious, but the people of Canada, who are sincere, who realize what their status is, who apprehend the dangers they are running in playing at diplomacy- the people of Canada are already telling you that you are doing wrong in this matter.
When I was in London the other day we had what I believe is the opinion of the people of Ontario, at least of the great city of Toronto. It was in the form of a long letter written, no doubt, by Sir John Willison criticising bitterly his friends of the present Government for playing at diplomacy because, as the London Times said through its correspondent, this whole question has been treated very mysteriously. The status of Canada has not changed. We maintain the best of relations with the United States. What the people of Canada are in need of to-day in Washington is a trade commissioner, looking for wider markets in the United States. We are anxious to do business with the United States and we want an alert commissioner to stir up business between the two countries and to open new channels.
The Times of London, printed that in substance, and I can send the 'warning .to my hon, 'friend, if he wishes 'to read it. No, Mr. Speaker, the Government is not sincere, and it ought 'to know-at least the Minister of Trade and Commerce, who has

bad a long and ho-noumable career in the Canadian ministry ought to know-that by the 'appointment of 'that semi-ambassador. of that so-called Minister Plenipotentiary, Canada sooner or later may be involved in grave international problems.


Mr. BURNHAM:: May I ask ithe hon. gentleman-*


Rodolphe Lemieux: 
John Hampden Burnham: I rise -to a point ot order.


Rodolphe Lemieux: What is the point at issue?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: If the hon. gentleman has risen to a point of order, will he ple-ase state the point?


John Hampden Burnham: My -poinit of order is that no debate can take place o-r no amendment be moved on -an item lin the Estimates.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I know there is a rule of the House to the effect that there can be no debate upon an item in the Estimates, but I do not think the present amendment can properly be brought .within the sphere of that rule. "The debate, it is true, involves the principle o-f representation -at Washington, in a measure; but the amendment calls for the production of papers and generally asks for delay. It i-s possible -that there may foe a certain amount of discussion which iwould infringe the rule referred to, but it does not -seem to me that the substance and in the main, the purport of the -amendment comes within the rule that the hon. -gentleman has in mind.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Mr. Speaker, this is not -an amendment to an item in the Estimates, it ds an amendment -before going into Committee of Supply.


George Green Foster: Committee of Ways and Means.


Rodolphe Lemieux: M-r. Speaker, I think that Canada is liable to be involved in -this game of pseudo-diplomacy. What will happen? My hon. friend says that the Canadian, representative and the British representative, laving possibly under the same roof in the same Embassy, will replace ea-ch other -at different times. My hon. friend very Well knows 'that cases like -the on-e which occurred in -the eighties are liable to happen at any time. My hon. friend will remember that the British Ambassador 'to the United States in -the eighties, when- Mir. Cleveland was a candidate in the presidential election, expressed his views -about -that election in -a letter written to a friend. It created quite a hubbub in the United S'tat-es. The incident occurred on -the eve of -a presidential election when, as- my hon. friend knows, some Americans are veTy fond of twisting the Lion's -tail. The British Ambassador



was recalled, and had to retire to Great Britain, .and there was a state of excitement for a while. In such a case as that would tfhe Canadian minister be also told to go hack to his own icountry? My hon. friend can see that living together-the one acting for 'the other as he described [DOT] this evening-Canada is liable to come to grief on many .and many questions, some indifferent, some insignificant by themselves. My hon. friend asks what are we doing otherwise than the hon. gentleman himself -the mover of the amendment-did, when he went to Washington in 1911 and discussed not a treaty tout a (pact which was liable to toe recalled at .any time toy 'the notice of either of the parties to' it.
My hon. friend said, speaking of the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's, "You went to Washington." Yes, the hon. gentleman went to Washington, and ten years afterwards my toon, friend can smile over the campaign which took place over that visit. You remember, Mr. Speaker, how the hon. gentleman, with his late colleague, Mr. Paterson, was represented as being an old and feeble minister, who had lost all strength and could not carry the burden, the immense burden be had on his Shoulders on that occasion. Well, ten years have elapsed and, judging from the speech which he delivered here this evening, the member for Shelburne and Queen's is still hale and hearty, Mr. Speaker. And what is most interesting is that those who made these foolish appeals against " truck and trade " with the United' States; those who for a while played with fire, have since practically adopted) that very policy. The policies advocated by my [DOT]hon. friend (Mr. Fielding) under the head of reciprocity have been carried out by the right hon. gentleman.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Order.


Rodolphe Lemieux: You were not in the
Chair, Mr. Speaker, when reciprocity was first mentioned in this debate. Had you been in the Chair, I am sure that, knowing as you do toy long experience that a word is sometimes as magic and may give rise to a long debate, you would have stopped my hon. friend who sits opposite. We have, my right hon. friend says, by secret correspondence and secret pour .parlers settled the status of Canada. We have appointed a Minister Plenipotentiary, hut we have no information to give to the House; the people's representatives are not entitled to full information. Then, turning to the mover of the amendment, he says:	You
LMr. I.emieux. ]
did the same with the reciprocity treaty- which, Mr. Speaker, was not a treaty. I say to my hon. friend-*


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: There is no objection
to referring to the manner in which the reciprocity agreement was negotiated. That is one thing, but it is quite a different thing to discuss the merits of reciprocity itself and its effect.


Rodolphe Lemieux: To be sure, Mr. Speaker, I will avoid that rock; I will not resurrect the issue of 1911. But my hon. friend says that all was secret in the proceedings with regard to reciprocity. If I remember well, we discussed it openly in the House of Commons. The agreement was laid on the Table; the House was dissolved in the old Liberal fashion and the people were called upon to pass upon the proposal. Moreover, the question was not a new one; it was as old as Confederation. My right hon. friend was not in the House in 1879, but he knows that Sir John A. Macdonald inserted in his famous tariff resolutions of 1879 a standing offer in the name of the Canadian people to the United States respecting reciprocity -an offer, you will note, made by the Tory party. Now, Mr. Speaker, I will leave reciprocity alone. .
With regard to any item of expenditure, whether it be for a thousand dollars or a million dollars, the humblest member of this House has the right to move for a return asking that the correspondence, the statistics, the information, be laid on the table of the House. It can be made the subject of debate and under our Parliamentary procedure the ministers responsible are obliged to lay on the Table ia return giving the whole of that information. But apparently the hon. gentleman has been so much accustomed during the last five years to govern in the old Tory fashion, at his own sweet will, without any regard for the people, that he thinks that the appointment of an ambassador to Washington, a change in the status of Canada, can be made without regard to the representatives of the Canadian people. Mr. Speaker, we hear so much about our relations with the Mother Country having been so greatly changed during the war; about a new status having been given to Canada, when still ringing in our Cars we have the word's of that master mind, perhaps the most marvellous student of parliamentary government, Mr. Asquith, who, answering the Prime Minister of New Zealand in 1911, stated in his own blunt English way that as regards foreign affairs the responsibilities of Great

Britain could not be shared with the dominions. Why, that is the A B 0 of international law. And, Mr. Speaker, lest my language should appear severe; lest my language should appear, perhaps, disloyal, let me once more read to my hon. friend the advice which was tendered to the Canadian people by one of the greatest men Canada ever produced; by that old statesman who during his last election uttered those remarkable words which carried him through to succcess:	"A British subject
I was born, a British subject I will die " -Sir John A. Macdonald. Speaking one day of all those imperalist apostles; of all those framers of new constitutions for Canada, he said in his own cynical and witty way:
I am, so far as that question goes, up to the handle a home-ruler. We will govern our own country. We will put on the taxes ourselves. If we choose to misgovern ourselves-
As we do now, unfortunately.
-we will do so, and we do not desire England, Ireland or Scotland to tell us we are fools. We will say: If we are fools we will keep our folly to ourselves; you will not he the worse for it and we will not be the worse for any folly of yours.
Mr. Speaker, those words bristle with wisdom and with common sense. Do not meddle in the affairs of the Mother Country, and the Mother Country will let us govern ourselves. We have governed ourselves during the last seventy-five years according to British t.aditions; according to the best constitutional usages. Do not accustom the people to unwise words. Do not accustom the people to think that the ministers of the Canadian Government are viewing with a light heart the loosening of the moorings which bind us to the Mother Country. Speaking for myself, Sir, and for my electors in the old province of Quebec, I am satisfied with my lot; I do not care for any change brought about by the policy of Lord Milner and by a Tory Government. Let Providence shape our destiny; let us not get into entanglements for the pleasure of having, supposedly, a Canadian Minister Plenipotentiary, but which, as that Unionist paper, the Winnipeg Free Press, so well said, will be nothing more or less than a camouflaged chief clerk.
Rt, Hon. C. J. DOHERTY (Minister of Justice): Mr. Speaker, I do not rise to take part in this debate, I frankly admit, because it seems to me that at this stage anything further need he said to make quite clear the futility of the proposed amendment and to make not only the members 167}
of this House but the people of Canada realize how hon. gentlemen opposite, failing entirely to find a basis for this amendment in any matter of fact, have been reduced one after another to struggling with their imagination in an endeavour to conjure up untold evils that we are to apprehend, because though there has been laid before the House in full the result of what this Government has done in co-operation with the Government of the United Kingdom and with the acceptance of the Government of the United States there is some failure to furnish needed information In this competition of imaginative powers I am sure the speakers opposite who have preceded me will find no fault nor complain that I am doing them an injustice, great as their achievements in the exercise of their imaginative powers have been when I award the palm to my very good friend the hon. member for Maison-*neuve (Mr. Lemieux). To lay the foundation of this edifice of terror which he has been at such pains to build up, the hon. gentleman had to carry us back-he is very fond of carrying us back-to the time in 1847-or 1848, was it?-when we had in this country a struggle for responsible government. That struggle for responsible government seems to haunt the hon. member's waking hours, and I often wonder whether it breaks in even upon his slumbers. He is so constantly in a state of terror, beholding this country on the brink of an-abyss to which nothing is comparable but the condition and the danger to which it was exposed in 1847. He is living still away back in 1847, surrounded with the dangers of 1847, living in the Canada of 1847, the Canada that must have been so horrible a place to live in since it was perpetually haunted by that most awful of spooks, the Family Compact. The hon. gentleman is still in dread and terror of the Family Compact that went to its rest so very many years ago and that has long ceased to trouble the waking thoughts or the sleeping dreams of ordinary, sane Canadians who have grown up with their country and who have been conscious of their country's growth. The hon. gentleman says: Responsible Government is in peril. Why? Because the responsible Government of Canada, having advised His Majesty, as it is the proper function of responsible ministers to do, that the time had come when Canada might very properly (transact herself by her own minister her business with her next-door neighbour, and having found that His Majesty's

Government said:	" Why, certainly that
[DOT]is! perfectly obvious; everybody recognizes that;" and that the Government of the United States said:	"Why, certainly,,
your representative will be most welcome" -the Government, as I say, having given that advice and having met with that reception, has come back to this Parliament and told this Parliament the totality of what it has done. Therefore, he says, the constitution is in danger. Why, here is this responsible Government right before this Parliament, the representatives of the people. If, in doing that, this Government has done anything which the people's representatives do not approve, let the hon. gentleman calm his fears, we are here in the hands of Parliament which the people of Canada elected, and if the people's representatives do not approve this thing, clear and plain as it is on its face, of which they have been fully informed, let them exercise their constitutional authority, and neither the Parliament nor the people of Canada will be for one moment bound by anything that has been done. Where is the danger to constitutional Government?
The leader of the Opposition Mr. Mackenzie King) said that the great question involved was the supremacy of Parliament on the one hand or the autocracy of the Cabinet on the other. In that expression he ran the hon. member for Maisonneuve (Mr. Lemieux) a very close second in evidence of powers of imagination. The autocracy of the Cabinet that stands here before Parliament to accept its judgment! Where is the supremacy? To-night the supremacy is in the hands of this Parliament to which we have told what we have done. If this Parliament thinks we have done right, well and good. If this Parliament thinks we have done wrong, it is in its hands to correct the wrong. Let me point this out. Hon. gentlemen have told us that they keep for another occasion their objectoins to what we have done; they will not to-night even question the wisdom of what we have done; they are satisfied to question the amount of information that they have received. It is a fair inference that on the information they have received they find no ground to question the wisdom of what we have done. It is true that while they have professed not to be questioning the wisdom of what we have done, they have wandered away-I think my hon. friend (Mr. Lemieux) was a particularly great sinner in that regard-from the subject of this sparsity of information and have indulged in some condemnation of the action itself.
fMr. Dohertv.]
But the amendment-they are quite right in that regard-does not raise the question of the wisdom of the action itself; it does not attack it; it does not question it; and I do not think it will be unfair if I suggest that they do not question the wisdom of that action, because they, like us, are absolutely satisfied that it will meet with the approval of the Canadian people. The hon. gentleman is worried about the whys and the wherefores. If the hon. gentleman does not know the whys and the wherefores which justify Canada attending to her own business, the people of Canada know all about them, and do not need to be told them over again. There are some things so obvious, there are some things so much a matter of common knowledge, that they do not call for repetition, and I am telling no secrets if I say that in the correspondence that did take place there is no discussion of why and wherefores. The thing itself in principle nobody disputes, and the Canadian people will not dispute it.
Now the hon. gentleman-and I should like to relieve his mind in this regard, because I would be sorry that he should lose his sleep to-night-is much perturbed by a ghost that walks often in his imagination, the ghost of somebody's mysterious efforts to create a system of imperialism that in some way or other is going to deprive us of our Canadian autonomy. He is so subject to the visits of that troublesome ghost that it comes between him and every step that goes to confirm and extend the outonomous powers of this country. EVery time a step of that kind is taken, this ghost passes across the line of vision that intervenes between my hon. friend and his advancing country, and he sees imperialism; he sees something that is going to deprive us of our right to our own self-government, something that is going to involve us in freightful responsibilities, and then, he winds it all up by seeing in the very same thing something that is going to loosen the bonds that bind this country to the Mother Country and hold together the great commonwealth of nations that we call the British Empire. Now I would, if I could, do something to allay his apprehensions in this regard. I would ask him if he were not making a speech, if he did not feel called upon to find words of condemnation of some action of this Government, but were engaged in the ordinary application of his common sense-'I would ask him how he sees in the fact that Canada is going to provide a Canadian appointed by

His Majesty upon the advice of the Canadian Government to be the channel of communication between Canada and the United States, a danger to Canada's autonomy?
He has told us that this proposal is all camouflage, that Canada could not appoint a minister plenipotentiary, that none but an independent country could appoint a minister plenipotentiary. Well, now, Canada is not going to appoint a minister plenipotentiary, but His Majesty the King, who is the King of Canada just as much as he is the King of the United Kingdom, upon the advice of his constitutional Canadian advisers is going to appoint a minister plenipotentiary to be his representative at Washington, his delegate to the United States, so far ae Canadian matters are concerned; and with all respect to the hon. gentleman's profound knowledge of international law, and the readiness with which he tells us that upon this side of the House we do not know the A. B. iC. of international law I venture to say to him that he will find no competent international lawyer who will question the power of His Majesty the King to appoint a minister plenipotentiary in the right of his Dominion of Canada. May I also tell him, since he seems to be singularly oblivious of the things that have been happening under all our eyes, that at the Peace Conference His Majesty exercised that power and dad the thing that the -hon. gentleman eays that anybody who knows the A. B. C. of international law would know he could not do. He did it, and those Canadian plenipotentiaries, in that quality of minister plenipotentiary, walked into the gathering of ministers plenipotentiary representing the states of the civilized world and were received and seated there on a footing of equality with His Majesty's ministers plenipotentiary representing the United Kingdom, with the ministers plenipotentiary representing the United States, with the ministers plenipotentiary representing France, Belgium, and all the nations of the earth. Yet the hon. gentleman says that if we knew the A. B. C. of international law we would know that Canada could not have a minister plenipotentiary. Now Canada has had ministers plenipotentiary. His Majesty named them upon the advice of his Canadian ministers, and His Majesty will name a minister plenipotentiary to go to Washington to be his representative there for the direction ol purely Canadian affairs, and that minister plenipotentiary will be Canada's minister plenipotentiary, the hon. gentleman's profound knowledge of international law to the contrary notwithstanding. The A. B. C. of
international law is away back in that past in which the hon. gentleman lives. It is prior to 1847, where dwell the spooks that trouble his days and his nights. It is very far back. Might I suggest to the hon. gentleman that he cast his eye on what 1 might describe as the X. Y. Z. of international law, on the latest developments, and then he will find to his great gratification that his country stands to-day in a position in which it is quite possible for her to have a minister plenipotentiary standing side by side with other ministers plenipotentiary on a footing of equality. X might say to my hon. friend, as he talks to us about the A. B. C. of international law, that this is not the only known caser When the German Empire was at the height of its power, Bavaria and several other countries had their distinct ministers. It is not at all an impossible thing that within one state, within one great international empire, you may have a number of nations, all capable of figuring in the society of nations. .
The hon. gentleman is very apprehensive-of what is going to happen, when there-comes to be a conflict of interests, as he says there may be, and he imagines it may come at a time when the British Ambassador has gone home to England. During his absence there comes to be a conflict of interest between Canada and the Mother Country or some other portion of the Empire, and the hon. gentleman is appalled as to what is going to happen.
Why, I think he would give the Canadian representative, or the British Ambassador if he should be acting alone, credit for a little common sense; and most assuredly,, if the hon. gentleman himself were representing Canada under those circumstances, I would have the most implicit trust in him that he would realize that in a conflict of interests it would be the duty of both ambassadors to refer the matter to their respective Governments. Then it would be for the Governments of the self-governing nations of the Empire to get together and give instructions to their respective representatives, and above all to give to the representative of the British Empire, the instructions that Test upon the conclusions coming from the consultation of all the nations of the British Empire. The hon. gentleman need not be anxious, I think, upon that ground. '	-
Now, the hon. gentleman gave us grave warning about playing with fire. He is so anxious that we should attend to our own affairs and do our own governing, and he has a horror of the old Tory days of the

Family Compact and, I suppose of government from Downing Street. But what does he quote as a warning? What the London Times says.


Rodolphe Lemieux: The Canadian correspondent.	1


Mr. DOHERTY:: Yes, the Canadian correspondent of the London Times. He thought that we were playing with fire and that there were grave dangers-I do not remember the exact words-involved in playing at diplomacy. With all respect to Sir John Willison, we are not playing with diplomacy; and with all respect to the hon. gentleman who is now evidently so devout a follower of Sir John Willison-seeing that he hangs on the words of wisdom dropping from the knight's mouth-we are not playing at diplomacy at all; we are getting back to the very simple position that I mentioned at the outset where Canadian business with the American people, our next-dooT neighbours, will be transacted-in all the forms of diplomacy if you will, as it must he-through a Canadian appointed by His Majesty upon the advice of the Canadian Government. If that be anything else than a rounding out of our powers of self-government, I am at a loss to imagine what it can be.
The hon. gentleman sees us involved in grave international troubles. There once was a British Ambassador at Washington who wrote a letter about their elections that the American people did not like, and the British Government recalled him. Now, on the hon. gentleman's advice, 'because we run that frightful risk, we should drop this project at once, because perhaps at some time our Canadian representative may write a letter that the American people may not like! And notwithstanding, if I accept his own view, that he was at such pains to point out to us the different occasions upon which our interests suffered because they were in the hands of exclusively British representatives, we must be on our guard not to have any representative of our own. The hon. gentleman was at pains to recall the Alaskan arbitration board, and pointed out the change of view on the part of the British member on that board. To what end? To warn us t-o have no representative of onr own. After pointing out that if we had not had two representatives of our own upon that tribunal we would have had no one to support'ojj& view, he says: Yon se, the British representative turned against Canada; the conclusion is, be careful never to be represented by any Canadian, always be represented by exclusively British representatives, 'because there have been British

representatives who have abandoned Canada's interests. I am not going to discuss whether there have 'been such British representatives, but out of the hon. gentleman's own mouth, if his statement be correct, comes the most conclusive argument why we ought to see to it that we have representatives of our own.
The hon. gentleman made a great contrast between what happened on the reciprocity treaty and on this matter, how openly they acted upon that treaty-just as openly as we are here to-night discussing this agreement-after it was made they brought it in and submitted it to Parliament.


Rodolphe Lemieux: And the correspendence.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Yes, they brought in the correspondence, and if there had been correspondence here of a nature to be useful in connection with this discussion, it might very well have been produced. But there is the question: How is the correspondence going to affect the question whether what has been done was the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do. The thing we did, is here for the fullest and freest discussion by hon. members and the people of Canada, iand that is the thing for which we are proud to be responsible and for which we are proud to be responsible, and for which we fear neither the verdict of this House nor the verdict of the people of this Dominion.
Now, the hon, gentleman is very much excited about what he calls the "hollow farce" of our status. No one has claimed that this particular arrangement has changed our status; it is the evidence of a change of status that has come as the result of a gradual growth. With regard to what happened during the war, I would say this-that the magnificent achievements of our soldiers, and the magnificent achievements of the Canadian people, did not change our status, but made manifest to the world, and commanded on the part of the world recognition of the fact, that we had attained a real national status. That is what has come: that recognition and the responsibility which accompanies it. This arrangement is another evidence of it. Arid yet the hod. gentleman talks about it as a hollow farce!
Why is it that hon. gentlemen are so frightened that the country should ever leave the maternal apron-strings? I presume they must be glad to see her growth, yet they do not want her to have the privileges and the responsibilities that come from growth; they are in a corner frightened at shadows, seeing on every side impending

dangers, and shrinking back from the manhood-if I may change the sex of our country for the moment-to which this country has attained.
What would any man think of his son who, having reached the status of manhood, would say: " It is true I am a man, with the developed force and reasoning power of a man, with the right of being consulted about matters in which I have an interest common with others that belong to the status of a man; but no, Mother, please let me keep a good strong hold of your apron-strings; because, you see, if I acknowledge manhood I might have to carry the responsibilities of manhood; there might even come a day when I might be responsible for some foolish letter that somebody wrote!" The hon. gentleman knows his country too well and loves her better than to believe that. He did not hesitate to tell us that we were not serious, that we were not sincere. He may from his point of view think that we are neither serious nor sincere, but I for mv part will not throw that back at him. I do not doubt his sincerity, nor do I doubt his seriousness; but, knowing as I do the intelligence and the capacity of the hon. gentleman, it is a puzzle to me how he justifies that cowering attitude on the part of his country, that he is so frightened at her assuming the responsibilities of nationhood, that he is so frightened of it that he is even willing to forego the status and the privileges of nationhood for fear that we might be called upon to carry the proper responsibilities associated with that nationhood. What he fears is that somebody is plotting to carry this country into something he calls Imperialism. Upon this side of the House there is no less desire and no less firm purpose that there is on the part of my hon. friend that there shall be preserved to Canada for all time the untrammeled rights that she enjoys to-day and to ensure that she shall continue to be entitled to the recognition of her status as an equal nation within this Empire. That determination is as strong on this side of the House as it can be in his breast and nothing is being done here, or by this Government, otherwise than that which is in the direction of consolidating and confirming that autonomous status of our country. We have gone further because we are advancing farther than those who have preceded us. I do not say that they were not looking in' the same direction but there is just as earnest determination to hold together this aggregation of nations, of which Canada is one-not an inferior one, not a dependency,
but a nation standing on that footing of equality that fits her just as well to furnish the British Ambassador as representing the entire Empire as the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom is not herself alone the Empire. There is nothing incongruous in a Canadian minister being the representative from time to time, if not permanently for the matter of that, of the British Empire, if it be thought wise by the other component parts of the British Empire. It is only an additional evidence of the recognition of the equality of our status within the Empire but here we are as determined to stand by Canada's rights to her position as an autonomous nation within the Empire as the hon. gentleman can be and that she shall maintain and hold her place in the great aggregation, the great commonwealth, of equal nations that go to make up the British Empire. My hon. friend need have no fear that we are wandering away from the example of that great statesman Sir John Macdonald whose words he read to us.


Hon.  H. S. BELAUD@Beauce: Before the minister sits down may I ask him a question? I see by the declaration that was made by the right hon. the Acting Prime Minister (Sir George Foster) that the Minister Plenipotentiary is going to be appointed by His Majesty on the recommendation of the Canadian Government. Do I understand that this recommendation will go direct to His Majesty without first being submitted to the British Government. In other words, is the appointment to be made by His Majesty the King on the recommendation of the Canadian Government without the question being referred at all to the English, or Imperial Government?


Charles Joseph Doherty: We have no doubt that His Majesty will not withhold from his British ministers his action in connection with the matter, but the statement is perfectly clear that the person to be appointed is to be appointed on the advice of his Canadian minister just as the Ministers Plenipotentiary at the Peace Conference were. I am not suggesting, and I do not know that there is occasion to suggest, that it is impossible, that, if the ministers of the United Kingdom see some reason why they should offer an objection, or possibly the ministers of other dominions see some reason for opposition, they can suggest it. I am not going into that. The proposed channel by which the advice gets to His Majesty does not alter the fact that it will be the advice of His Majesty's Canadian ministers.


Henri Sévérin Béland: In other words according to the 'Government's understanding of the appointment of the minister at Washington the Canadian Government is not supreme as the adviser Of His Majesty?


Charles Joseph Doherty: As far as I understand it the Canadian Government is supreme as the adviser of His Majesty:
Accordingly, it has been agreed that His Majesty, on advice of his Canadian ministers, shall appoint a Minister Plenipotentiary who will have charge of Canadian affairs and will at all times be the ordinary channel of communication with the United States Government in matters of purely Canadian concern, acting upon instructions from and reporting direct to the Canadian Government.
I can see no room for suggesting even a doubt that the advice of the Canadian ministers is to he supreme as to who shall be the Canadian minister or Plenipotentiary.


Henri Sévérin Béland: So that the recommendation will go direct to His Majesty?


Charles Joseph Doherty: Whatever is the regular channel by which communications reach His Majesty.


Ernest Lapointe: Hear, hear; that is very diplomatic.	.


Mr. JOSEPH ARCHAMBAULT (Cham-bly and Vercheres):: Mr. Speaker, like my hon. friend the Minister of Justice (Mr. Doherty) I did not intend to speak on this amendment and I would not have risen were it not for the fact that the hon. the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Rowell) referred to Hansard of last year. I have found a few lines which my hon. friend has not read, to which he has not referred, and which might be of great interest to the House. When my hon. friend stated that the matter of the appointment of a Minister Plenipotentiary at Washington was fully discussed and approved by the Opposition last year he did not state really what happened. I am sure he did not wish to deceive the House, but if he did not wish to deceive, what has 'become of his usual power of observation?


Newton Wesley Rowell: My hon. friend -has not quoted what I said to-night.. I said tonight that the question of the Canadian representative at Washington had been discussed in the House on the occasions I mentioned and that there had been no objection to the principle of that appointment.


Joseph Archambault: 

SUPPLY.

[Stage Direction]
Royal Canadian Mounted Police-Amount to be voted, $4,6-74,066.40.
William Stevens Fielding: May I suggest to my right hon. friend who is leading the Government that he will require time to reflect on the situation and that we might now adjourn?
Progress, reported.
On motion of Rt. Hon. Sir George Foster journed at 12.20 a.m.

Tuesday, May 18, 1920.